One thing that was pointed out to me is that often when there are numbers of people in an emergency there is a failure to use the assets at hand.

The 6'4" 320 pounds of pure muscle could easily carry a child or someone from a wheelchair down stairs. The problem is that nobody goes to him, explains the situation, asks him to help out and coordinates. Too often people are too intimidated by his size to ask. Quite often the big guys want either never even consider helping, but will if asked, or they want to help but are afraid people will take any attempt to help as an attack.

In my experience most people love to be given something meaningful to do in an emergency. Beats idleness, feeling useless and boredom. They are just waiting for someone to tell them what needs to be done and to delegate some small measure of authority to them before they get involved and put themselves on the line.

Survival is often dependent on your ability to efficiently use resources. People are resources.