Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Escape a Sinking Ship

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 189 posts

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#171

Post by ocdtrekkie »

hef19898 wrote: post #100
smogcutter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

That's the tricky part. Official safety rules are there for a reason, that is because by the best knowledge they work. 9/11 was special because nobody expected the towers to go down. The Sewol was man-made disaster. In most other cases, following orders as a passenger and official safety rules will safe your life. It will also maximize the number of lives saved. And even if authorities don't necessarily know more tha…

> 9/11 was special because nobody expected the towers to go down.

Even so, universally, the safest choice in a disaster is to not be where the disaster is ASAP.

Similarly, in a mass shooting, "run away" is the first piece of advice. Hiding or fighting is only when that option isn't available.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#172

Post by hef19898 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #171
hef19898 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the tricky part. Official safety rules are there for a reason, that is because by the best knowledge they work. 9/11 was special because nobody expected the towers to go down. The Sewol was man-made disaster. In most other cases, following orders as a passenger and official safety rules will safe your life. It will also maximize the number of lives saved. And even if authorities don't necessarily know more tha…

> 9/11 was special because nobody expected the towers to go down. Even so, universally, the safest choice in a disaster is to not be where the disaster is ASAP. Similarly, in a mass shooting, "run away" is the first piece of advice. Hiding or fighting is only when that option isn't available.

The safest choice would be to stay put and wait for help. Always. Unless staying put is no option due to a clear and immenant threat. Because running away in case of an active shootin might put you in someones line of fire. Running down the stairs in a burning building might expose you to smoke and fumes. Or even fire, in case you do not know if you are above or below the fire. Or it might block emergency personel from reaching others needing help or from reaching the, e.g. fire.

That being said, I think there was a discussion regarding the evacuation of burning skyscrapers after 9/11.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#173

Post by igneo676 »

candu wrote: post #157

I was curious how realistic the advice to dress in your finest would be, so... In the US, at least, union wages would have brought in $20-30 or so per week. [1] Looking through [2], you could get a whole gentleman's outfit for roughly $50 or so. Even still, you'd be spending 2-3 weeks' wages on a single set of clothing - not to mention that you'd need somewhere to store all that, and you'd probably also need addition…

Sure, you're not going to look the part of an upper class individual. The important part is to look as little out-of-place in the middle of a rush to the lifeboats as you possibly can. Nobody is watching THAT closely.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#175

Post by 542354234235 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #170
542354234235 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that it would necessarily turn out that way now. I doubt it would, and that is a good thing. The whole “women and children” thing was part of the whole “women are weak creatures that need to be looked after and protected like children” mentality.

I doubt that very many of the women passengers on board the Titanic were objecting to the chauvinism inherent in "women and children first". In time of life-or-death crisis, if you don't have a "women and children first" ethic, you will most likely have an "every man for himself" attitude, in which case you will end up with a very male-favorable survival rate, as bigger and yes physically stronger men shove women and…

> if you don't have a "women and children first" ethic, you will most likely have an "every man for himself" attitude

The fact that it has to be women and children to you is exactly what I was talking about. That women were, and I guess to certain extent still are, put into a separate category of lesser capability. “Save the children” is a perfectly valid alternative to “every man for himself”. Or children and them parents first. There are multiple ways we could have been “noble” in the face of tragedy, and part of what shaped the idea we did end up with stemmed from a sexist paternalistic idea about adult women.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#176

Post by saintamh »

echelon wrote: post #73
mauvehaus wrote: post #22

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...

I love vivid, harrowing writing like this. Despite seeing James Cameron's Titanic, I never pictured the ships themselves as being such an obstacle to survival. This makes it feel so real. It's haunting. Do you have anything more like this?

The author of that article, William Langewiesche, has written several others in that vein:

- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-...

- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-faro-the-w...

- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/the-mecca-stampede-t...

- https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/06/us-airways-200906

- https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/01/air_crash200901

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#177

Post by epicureanideal »

dmurray wrote: post #146
epicureanideal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing how representative the 18 shipwrecks they picked are, it’s hard to know whether their conclusions are widely applicable. Also, from their research paper, some of the ships they mentioned had been torpedoed or ran aground, SIX collisions, etc. A first guess would be that men sometimes survive more than women and children simply because they were more physically able to overcome the dangerous environmen…

> If a group of average men and average women are thrown into the ocean and left to their own devices, after a few hours more men will be left just because of physical strength. Is that true? I believe women survive longer in cold water, because on average they have a higher body fat proportion.

Even if so, that's just the temperature problem. There's also the possible problems of:

* needing to swim for a long time, regardless of the water's temperature (this is what I had in mind with my comment you replied to)

* pushing your way past obstacles in a damaged ship

* physically surviving damage from falling debris, burns, cuts, blood loss

I'm sure others can think of more issues.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#178

Post by ASalazarMX »

tdeck wrote: post #79
smogcutter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

As an extreme example I'm reminded of this south korean ferry disaster where 304 passengers died: > As Sewol began sinking, the ferry's intercom system started ordering the passengers to stay put, alleging that moving was dangerous. The announcements were made by a communication officer, Kang Hae-seong, who had not consulted the manual before the broadcast. The announcements began broadcasting by at least 8:52 a.m. a…

> Captain Lee also instructed passengers to stay put and did not change the order even as he was leaving the ship.

This reads like SpaceBalls.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#179

Post by ocdtrekkie »

hef19898 wrote: post #172
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 9/11 was special because nobody expected the towers to go down. Even so, universally, the safest choice in a disaster is to not be where the disaster is ASAP. Similarly, in a mass shooting, "run away" is the first piece of advice. Hiding or fighting is only when that option isn't available.

The safest choice would be to stay put and wait for help. Always. Unless staying put is no option due to a clear and immenant threat. Because running away in case of an active shootin might put you in someones line of fire. Running down the stairs in a burning building might expose you to smoke and fumes. Or even fire, in case you do not know if you are above or below the fire. Or it might block emergency personel fr…

This is false. Especially in the active shooter case, where staying put is explicitly discouraged by all professional training on the matter: https://www.ready.gov/public-spaces

> Seek safety. Getting away from the attacker is the top priority.

> If you can’t evacuate, cover and hide.

This is generally true in most disaster scenarios. Staying is often "dying". If you are in a burning building, you should leave the burning building. If you are on a sinking ship, you actually should leave the sinking ship rather than go under inside it.

Where ever the disaster is, get away from it.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#180

Post by pasabagi »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #179
hef19898 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safest choice would be to stay put and wait for help. Always. Unless staying put is no option due to a clear and immenant threat. Because running away in case of an active shootin might put you in someones line of fire. Running down the stairs in a burning building might expose you to smoke and fumes. Or even fire, in case you do not know if you are above or below the fire. Or it might block emergency personel fr…

This is false. Especially in the active shooter case, where staying put is explicitly discouraged by all professional training on the matter: https://www.ready.gov/public-spaces > Seek safety. Getting away from the attacker is the top priority. > If you can’t evacuate , cover and hide. This is generally true in most disaster scenarios. Staying is often "dying". If you are in a burning building, you should leave the b…

YMMV. A friend of mine was recently in a fire, and several of her neighbors died because they tried to leave using the stairs, then succumbed to smoke inhalation. Everybody who stayed in their flats survived.

I think it's awfully situational, but in the case of a fire, if you live in a house with decent fire standards (thick doors, fire-retardant insulation), I think you might be safer staying inside and waiting for a truck to come with a ladder.

I would probably leave my flat through the window, with a rope. It's not terribly high, so if I mess up, I'd probably just break my legs.

Post reply on HN