The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

by Amanda Ripley

Because regular people are the most important people at a disaster scene, every time.

But as we build ever more impressive buildings and airplanes, we do less and less to build better survivors.

Dread = Uncontrollability + Unfamiliarity + Imaginability + Suffering + Scale of Destruction + Unfairness

In fact, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism in the past fifty years is fewer than the number killed by food allergies. But terrorism is by nature a mind game.

First and most important, the people in charge of warning us should treat us with respect.

“Often the pilots and the flight attendants do not want to inform the passengers about an emergency for fear of upsetting them,”