The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

by Amanda Ripley

Finally, passengers couldn’t find first aid kits to treat the wounded. It turned out that supplies were kept in subway supervisors’ offices, not on the trains.

Laughter—or silence—is a classic manifestation of denial, as is delay.

We have a tendency to believe that everything is OK because, well, it almost always has been before. Psychologists call this tendency “normalcy bias.”

This gathering process is common in life-or-death situations. Facing a void of unknown, we want to be prepared with as many supplies as possible. And, as with normalcy bias, we find comfort in our usual habits. (In a survey of 1,444 survivors after the attacks, 40 percent would say they gathered items before leaving.)