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How to Escape a Sinking Ship

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61–70 of 189 posts

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#61

Step 1. Don't be a man Step 2. Don't be poor. 97% of First Class women and 87% of female crew members survived the sinking of the Titanic. https://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm

Step 1 don’t be poor. (Most poor died by default.) Step 2 don’t be a man.

According to the resource linked to, third class women had a higher survival rate than first class men. Not that it would necessarily turn out that way now.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#62

The Atlantic'a piece about the sinking of the ferry Estonia contains some interesting pieces of information for anybody who might like to survive a sinking in the future. It might also put you off getting on ships. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-s...

This was an incredible piece of writing. Thanks for posting the link!

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#63
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats bad for the whole might be better for you. People in the WTC were told to chill out, no worries, all is well. Screw that — if something hits the fan, I will gtfo.

I was in the Ritz-Carlson in DTLA last year for Anime expo. Waiting on the third floor for a convention with atleast 200 people just in that one smaller area, all of the sudden, a live voice came over the intercom with instructions to immediately evacuate the building, all but essential staff. In my mind it seemed as serious as if there was an active shooter somewhere. I was literally the only person in the group to…

Don't know about you but in my country they test and test those system relentlessly so you get "boy who cried wolf" situation.

Not sure how to avoid that.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#64

For a more generalisable solution: - Pick a ship with robust safety measures, procedures, and equipment, sailing in favourable conditions, if at all possible. - Rehearse evacuation. Drilling and mentally noting escape routes and pitfalls makes successful performance during an actual emergency the more likely. - Maintain situational awareness. Things can go pear-shaped remarkably quickly. Numerours modern shipping dis…

Speaking of generalisable solutions – military strategy has a concept called the OODA loop, invented to give a roadmap to survive combat: you observe a situation, orient yourself in it based on past experience and knowledge of what's happening, decide on a plan, and act. All the while, you process what's happening and use that feedback to possibly change your decisions. It strikes me as a generic but useful way to th…

OODA (obseve, orient, decide, act) is good and I'm a fan.

Training, drilling, and practicing teaches you what to observe, how to orient, how to decide, and how to act. At the least these should be familiar. If you're frequently dealing with emergencies ... either find a safer environment or make the responses second nature.

A key benefit of OODA over rote drilling is recognising when a trained response is not improving the situation. Often victims pursue a single tack even after it is clearly worthless. OODA, executed correctly, allows an opportunity to reset, reassess, and try an alternative tack.

The observe-process-decide-act loop is common to any systems, control, or cybernetics process, and quite useful

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#65

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

>Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it.

I learned this lesson on 9/11, as a high school student in lower Manhattan. We were told to sit in our homerooms and wait, while smoke (and god knows what else) enveloped the building. Eventually we were shuffled out of the building and told to keep going north, left entirely to our own devices. I completely understand their reaction, but that doesn’t make it a good one.

The authorities don’t necessarily know any more than you do. Their interest in maintaining order is not necessarily aligned with your interest in your own safety. When the shit hits the fan, don’t wait for permission to protect yourself.

[obviously this is situational. I’m not advocating climbing over others to be first out the plane or etc]

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#66

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

>Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. I learned this lesson on 9/11, as a high school student in lower Manhattan. We were told to sit in our homerooms and wait, while smoke (and god knows what else) enveloped the building. Eventually we were shuffled out of the building and told to keep going nor…

Someone I knows knows someone who worked in the second WTC building to be hit. After the first strike, their employer's plan was for everyone to stay in place, but they got the heck out of there. Saved their life.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#67
post #8

clickbait title, the author only describes how to escape Titanic in 1912 if you happen to have a time machine and a cheap ticket to lower deck. This advice doesn't generalize well.

Does every thread need a complaint about the article title? Titles are supposed to pique your interest. That's about it. And "How to Escape a Sinking Ship" is a much better title than yours.

Complaints about click-bait titles have gotten far more annoying than click-bait titles, at least for me. This article was worth a read, regardless of its title.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#68
post #34
post #6

"Up and out." Nothing to do with Titanic, but based on reading disaster articles on Wikipedia, my advice is, if a ship you are on takes on a noticeable list, get to the high side immediately. If the list worsens, get outside on the deck. Beyond a certain point, a list has a way of accelerating, and interior corridors become canyons and floors become walls, dooming everyone on the low side.

Benji Smith, who used to hang out on Joel's software forum, was on the Costa Concordia with his new wife when it ran aground and sank. Being on the high-side of the ship helped them survive, using a rope they found to climb down the hull. Getting to the deck before the corridors became impassible because of the list was critical. > Then, an empty wine bottle started to move, creeping inch by inch toward the edge of t…

From looking at the Wikipedia article on the Costa Concordia, 99% of the people on board survived. That sounds like, in this instance, no special skill(s) nor awareness were really needed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#69

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

>Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. I learned this lesson on 9/11, as a high school student in lower Manhattan. We were told to sit in our homerooms and wait, while smoke (and god knows what else) enveloped the building. Eventually we were shuffled out of the building and told to keep going nor…

In a situation like that, you only have a choice between really bad options. If everyone ran for the door, people would likely have been hurt or killed due to trampling. If everyone panics, you are guaranteed to have a bad outcome. In your case, staying in place might have allowed the dust to (literally) settle by the time you left the building. Obviously the people in the 2nd tower had a different outcome.
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