The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

by Amanda Ripley

The word disaster, from the Latin dis (away) and astrum (stars), can be translated as “ill-starred.”

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

It’s as if we don’t fear death itself so much as dying. We fear the how, not so much the what.

Even in times of calm, we trend toward arrogance. About 90 percent of drivers think they are safer than the average driver. Most people also think they are less likely than others to get divorced, have heart disease, or get fired. And three out of four baby boomers think they look younger than their peers. People have a tendency to believe that they are, well, superior. Psychologists call this the “Lake Wobegon effect”—after the fictitious Minnesota town invented by Garrison Keillor, who described it as a place “where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” The Lake Wobegon effect may be warped, but it helps us deal. We can process horrible events more readily if we assume we will be exempt from future suffering.

The more Damasio learned, the more he came to appreciate so-called irrational sentiments. Emotions and feelings were not impediments to reason; they were integral. “Reason may not be as pure as most of us think it is or wish it were,” he wrote. “At their best, feelings point us in the proper direction, take us to the appropriate place in a decision-making space, where we may put the instruments of logic to good use.”

“I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of ‘news’ is ‘something that hardly ever happens,’” writes security expert Bruce Schneier. “It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news—car crashes, domestic violence—that you should start worrying.”

“Time in general is not slowing down. It’s just that in a fearful situation, you recruit other parts of the brain, like the amygdala, to lay down memories. And because they are laid down more richly, it seems as though it must have taken longer.” In other words, trauma creates such a searing impression on our brains that it feels, in retrospect, like it happened in slow motion.

The brain is built to focus on one thing at a time, whether in a traffic jam or during an emergency landing. We have built technology for multitasking, but the brain has not changed.

Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences.

The hippocampus is just one factor in the sprawling equation for posttraumatic stress disorder. Other things matter too, Gilbertson stresses. The amount of trauma, the degree of family support for the victim—all of these things can massively compound or contain the damage. Suffering accumulates, like debt.

Panic occurs if and only if three other conditions are present, Quarantelli concluded. First, people must feel that they may be trapped.

Second, panic requires a sensation of great helplessness—which often grows from interaction with others.

The final prerequisite to panic is a sense of profound isolation, Quarantelli found. Surrounded by others, all of whom feel utterly powerless, we realize we are exquisitely alone. We understand that we could be saved—but no one is going to do it. Panic is, in a way, what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality—and know that it didn’t have to be so.

Politics also do not predict behavior, the Oliner study found. Rescuers and nonrescuers alike were simply not all that concerned with politics. Rescuers were, however, more likely to support democratic, pluralistic ideologies in general.

On 9/11, between songs, Rescorla called his wife. “Stop crying,” he said. “I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I’ve never been happier. You made my life.”