Do you know where the stairs are?
Jan. 16th, 2006 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jenkWhat do you do when a plane hits your office building?
What some people did on 9/11 was freeze. Most milled around a bit, asking others what to do. Over 1000 survivors took the time to shut their computers down. According to one survivor quoted in Time, "What I really wanted was for someone to scream back, 'Everything is O.K.! Don't worry.'" Fortunately for her, a with-it co-worker yelled "Get out!"; she did. Per the experts quoted in the article, intense disbelief is a common stage in the face of disaster. The article ("How To Get Out Alive" from the May 2 2005 issue) is archived on the Time pay site, but I thought some notes worth typing in here.
In a disaster:
10% to 15% of people stay calm and can act immediately & efficiently.
15% freak.
70% to 75% freeze.
In the 1977 Tenerife disaster, a KLM plane sliced open a Pan Am 747 sitting on the ground. FAA regulations require that a plane can be evacuated in 90 seconds with 1/2 the exits blocked and bags in the aisle; the Pan Am passengers had 60 seconds to get out before the fire engulfed the plane. Survivor Floy Heck followed her husband Paul's orders and left the plane "like a zombie".
From the "Survival Tips" sidebar:
What some people did on 9/11 was freeze. Most milled around a bit, asking others what to do. Over 1000 survivors took the time to shut their computers down. According to one survivor quoted in Time, "What I really wanted was for someone to scream back, 'Everything is O.K.! Don't worry.'" Fortunately for her, a with-it co-worker yelled "Get out!"; she did. Per the experts quoted in the article, intense disbelief is a common stage in the face of disaster. The article ("How To Get Out Alive" from the May 2 2005 issue) is archived on the Time pay site, but I thought some notes worth typing in here.
In a disaster:
10% to 15% of people stay calm and can act immediately & efficiently.
15% freak.
70% to 75% freeze.
In the 1977 Tenerife disaster, a KLM plane sliced open a Pan Am 747 sitting on the ground. FAA regulations require that a plane can be evacuated in 90 seconds with 1/2 the exits blocked and bags in the aisle; the Pan Am passengers had 60 seconds to get out before the fire engulfed the plane. Survivor Floy Heck followed her husband Paul's orders and left the plane "like a zombie".
Just before they jumped out of a hole in the left side of the craft, she looked back at her friend Lorraine Larson, who was just sitting there, looking straight ahead, her mouth slightly open, hands folded in her lap.The article notes that before the crash, "Paul Heck did something unusual". He looked at the safety diagram and noted the nearest exits. When disaster hit, his brain knew what to do.
From the "Survival Tips" sidebar:
- Be a nerd People who obey fire drills and read safety diagrams on airplanes have programmed their brains to escape. In a real disaster, your vision and thinking will most likely be impaired, so you will need the help. Why don't more people do these things? They think it's not cool, surveys show.
- Think vertically Humans don't intuitively understand skyscrapers. Imagine working at one end of a long building in which the exits are four football fields away. If you're on the 60th floor, rescuers won't reach you for at least an hour and a half.
- Travel light In airplane evacuations (which actually happen fairly often), people lunge for their carry-on bags before escaping. Don't do it. If you work in a skyscraper, keep flat shoes nearby. In the Trade Center, hundreds of women ditched their heels on the stairs.
