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Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

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Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#51

Post by ethanbond »

xoxxala wrote: post #15
ethanbond wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the warnings they should've heeded differently?

A state official delayed releasing water for firefighting efforts over a water usage dispute: https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a-state-official-refused-t... This water dispute has been going on for a while. From that article: "In 2022, two Maui senators, Gil Keith-Agaran and Lynne DeCoite, introduced a measure to push DLNR to allow fresh water to be used to fight fires and pointed to West Maui as being particularly…

So what warnings should’ve been heeded differently? Is it the “we’re running out of water” warning that’s been going on for years or just the “we actually need to use a bunch of water to put out fires” warning?

Obviously we should use water to save lives and there were errors there, but I’m 100% confident that the question of whether we can use water to fight fires didn’t come up for no reason.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#52

Post by ompogUe »

phpisthebest wrote: post #9

Survival is almost always increased by ignoring government officials, I dont know why we have to keep relearning this lesson over and over again but some people still follow government like they have some divine knowledge Government works best which is subservient to the people, the second it becomes something else bad things will happen

Also, there is knowing the limits of the governments capabilities, and accentuating it.

The Cajun Navy started out with someone's great aunt rounding up some bass boats in the swamp to send to New Orleans after Katrina. It now has dispatchers on call (which takes pressure off of the 911 system) collecting needs, channeling volunteers where rescues are needed, and piping emergencies to 911. Also, has built expertise around post-disaster rebuilding - CNGF has boots on the ground in Maui.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#53

Post by vkou »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #50
rewmie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trust your gut, maintain awareness. This advice is pretty bad, and reeks of survivorship bias. This "truthiness" approach to safety purposely ignores the countless cases of morons getting themselves killed by intentionally ignoring directions from emergency services.

The applicability of advice obviously depends on where you are on the knowledge/intelligence bell curve. Blindly following orders makes sense if 1) you are an idiot or 2) your gut agrees and it seems sensible. If you are knowledgeable and you think something is wrong, that should be cause for second-guessing.

> The applicability of advice obviously depends on where you are on the knowledge/intelligence bell curve.

The problem is that every single one of us is an idiot at , and in a large number of them, we don't even know that we are idiots.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#54

Post by vkou »

stuff4ben wrote: post #2

With the level of incompetence being shown by officials, I think it's not too far fetched to consider jail time for them. They'll plead ignorance of course, but there were warnings and these deaths are on them.

So, you're going to jail people for following procedures, because the outcome was bad?

Are you also going to jail people for not following procedures, if the outcome turned out to be bad?

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#55

Post by WeylandYutani »

skidd0 wrote: post #7

Tragic events like this can be a reminder that the only person responsible for your safety is You. You Cannot rely on "officials" or rules to care more about you than you do. Trust your gut, maintain awareness. Do not be lulled into complacency by safety theatre.

[flagged]

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#56

Post by drewcoo »

unshavedyak wrote: post #43
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Directions from emergency services are sometimes wrong. Let us admit that they are usually right. But not always. Remember that .

Also worth remembering that frequently the average person has no idea what to do in emergencies and the gut response is frequently wrong, if not terribly wrong.

And people who do know what to do in emergencies are trained to do that.

Trust training, not your gut.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#57

Post by bell-cot »

omniglottal wrote: post #45
unshavedyak wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth remembering that frequently the average person has no idea what to do in emergencies and the gut response is frequently wrong, if not terribly wrong.

The police are average people too.

Good training makes a huge difference. Ditto experience.

Hard to quickly judge: How much applicable good training/experience does the law officer who is giving you directions (in an emergency) have? And ditto for the command structure behind him, which is most likely where the "direct people to go $This way, not $That way" decisions are coming from.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#58

Post by gamblor956 »

There were no barricades...

There were downed power lines in the roads, blocking traffic. Many of these power lines were in the outbound lanes.

The AP article cited for the claim that there were barricades shows officers directing evacuees around a downed power line while utility workers try to remove it from the road.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#59

Post by civilitty »

Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #47
civilitty wrote: post #24

Everyone's focused on the barricades (orange cones from the sound of it) but this caught my eye at the end: > “The gridlock would have left us there when the firestorm came,” Cuevas-Reyes, 38, told the AP. “I would have had to tell my children to jump into the ocean as well and be boiled alive by the flames or we would have just died from smoke inhalation and roasted in the car.” That kind of gridlock is why we have…

All it takes is one fallen power line or tree to turn that stroad into a giant parking lot of death. Cutting back brush and undergrounding power lines is much more cost-effective than building stroads up into the hillsides.

Cutting back brush and putting powerlines underground doesn't help people evacuate during a natural disaster, it just removes two ways a single type of natural disaster can spread.

Everyone living in an area needs enough space to evacuate fast enough to get away from natural disasters safely. It doesn't matter if there's a downed power line when no one can get out due to gridlock even in the best case scenario. Everyone's gotta be able to get out fast enough.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#60

Post by s1artibartfast »

vkou wrote: post #53
s1artibartfast wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The applicability of advice obviously depends on where you are on the knowledge/intelligence bell curve. Blindly following orders makes sense if 1) you are an idiot or 2) your gut agrees and it seems sensible. If you are knowledgeable and you think something is wrong, that should be cause for second-guessing.

> The applicability of advice obviously depends on where you are on the knowledge/intelligence bell curve. The problem is that every single one of us is an idiot at , and in a large number of them, we don't even know that we are idiots .

That's certainly a challenge to navigate, but not an excuse to completely throw your intelligence away. If a road sign clearly pointing off a cliff, don't drive off the cliff!

If your town is on fire in a sign, possibly outdated, points You Into The Inferno, don't follow it!

If there is a safe spot that you have personal knowledge of, go there despite the directions.

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