Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

One of the most annoying features of a pandemic flu is that it is never officially over. And this one is just getting started. I spent the day submerged in the Flu Summit held at NIH, just outside of DC. I can think of more fun things to do, but it was a helpful primer on where things stand. So I have good news and bad.

Good news: So far, this flu seems pretty stable in the southern hemisphere. It doesn’t seem to be getting more virulent. Which means it probably won’t wipe out all of humanity--not now anyway. Woo hoo! Also, it means that we can cook up a vaccine before the flu goes changing on us.

Less major but still vaguely good news: Obama called in from Italy for a quick rah rah and sent 3 cabinet secretaries to represent. None of them said anything particularly memorable, but it is a sign that they are taking this seriously--despite all the other things they are taking seriously at this cluttered moment.

Bad news: H1N1 is everywhere and targeting the young. An estimated 1m Americans have been infected. Of the dead, the vast majority are under age 65. So even if H1N1 stays at its current, relatively low fatality rates, that could still mean thousands of dead or hospitalized children and adults in the months ahead.

Prognosis: Vaccine trials should start in August. If all goes well, vaccinations could begin mid-Oct. It seems likely the first phase of a vaccine will target kids, pregnant women, health care workers and people with “underlying conditions"--which is defined in this case to mean lots and lots of people (i.e. people with asthma, diabetes, obesity, etc.) But there are still hundreds of things no one yet knows: like how much vaccine people will need, how it will be distributed, and when.

Bottom line: Influenza is notoriously unpredictable, so everything will depend on government types (states and locals especially) and the public adapting quickly. To stay in fighting shape, I’d go here, here and here on a regular basis. Not very satisfying, as far as bottom lines go… OK, I’ll try again: I’m getting the feeling that schools will be Ground Zero--the epicenter of infection, disruption, mitigation and vaccine delivery. Prepare to hear a LOT about schools… and given the way American schools are run, prepare for some places to work miracles and other places to stink it up in a major way.

“War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate."--Robert S. McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War.

Reading the obits of McNamara today, I am struck by his (atrociously belated) assessment of the brain’s limitations when it comes to modern warfare.

It is a view shared by many people who study risk, as well. Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 20 years as a trader in New York and London. He is an author and a professor now, in addition to holding a large stake in a hedge fund.

Taleb and I met for tea in Washington, D.C., a few years ago, and I interviewed him for THE UNTHINKABLE. That afternoon, he had come from the Pentagon, where he had briefed officials on his theories about uncertainty. The Pentagon was a strange place for him to be, since Taleb is a self-described pacifist. “I am a peace activist simply out of rationality,” he said.

Taleb grew up in Lebanon, a country haunted by war’s unintended consequences. He has concluded that human beings are unable to handle
war in the modern age. “We’re not really able to assess how long wars will take and what the net outcome will be.” The risk is too complex for our
abilities. Once upon a time, we were better at war. “In a primitive environment, if someone is threatening me, I go kill him,” he says in his
clipped, matter-of-fact way. “And I get good results most of the time.” He calls this environment “Mediocristan,” a place where it is hard to kill many
people at once; a place where cause and effect are more closely connected. Homo sapiens spent hundreds of thousands of years living in Mediocristan. We rarely needed to understand probability because, most of the time, life was simpler, and the range of possible events was narrower.

But today, we live in a place Taleb calls “Extremistan,” subject to the “tyranny of the singular, the accidental, the unseen and the unpredicted.” Technology has allowed us to create weaponry that can strafe the planet in minutes. Lone individuals can alter the course of history. People kill each other every day without much physical exertion. And, at the same time, we have become ever more interdependent. What happens on one continent now has consequences for another. World War I, Taleb points out, was expected to be a rather small affair. So was Vietnam. In fact, the twentieth century was, and now the twenty-first century is, characterized by wars of unforeseen results.

Risk is often counterintuitive in Extremistan. Our old tricks don’t work. Survival may ultimately depend on understanding our brain’s limitations. 

I’ve heard from a few people today who are wondering what to make of the child survivor of the Yemeni plane crash in the Indian Ocean.

It’s not yet clear how old the child is (early reports said the child was 5--and male; more recent reports point to a 14-year-old girl), and This child is now said to be a 14-year-old girl, but we know little else at the moment. Still, it seems like a good excuse to talk about how children fare in plane crashes in general.

The answer: not well, alas. But before we even go there, a quick reality check: Children are hardly ever in plane crashes, it’s worth remembering. Car crashes are what we should be talking about night and day. Among those 2-12 years old, car-crash injuries are the leading cause of death. Each year about 1,800 children aged 14 and under are killed in cars, and more than 280,000 are injured. Let me say again: 1,800 children.

So we’re way off in the far reaches of low-risk/high-fear land here. But OK, let’s do this. So hardly any kids are ever killed in plane crashes. But what to make of the Yemeni crash? If it is true that the sole survivor was a child, does that mean children may be better off in some plane crashes?

No. In general, children--especially small children--are at special risk in a lot of accidents, including plane crashes. They may need extra help to escape, and they may be more prone to secondary complications (as are older people). They may not understand the safety instructions (like many grown ups) and they are accustomed to being told what to do--always dangerous in a plane crash.

We don’t know what happened in the Indian Ocean, but it’s a safe bet that the most important factor was luck. The survivor’s seat may have been located in just the right spot. But not even that can be predicted. What is the safest part of the plane in a water crash? I asked Dr. Dan Johnson, an aviation safety expert who wrote the highly readable book, Just in Case: A Passenger’s Guide to Airplane Safety and Survival. And he gave me the secret. Are you ready? “Sometime the overwing is safer, but sometime the back of the plane is safer, and other times the front is safer.” That pretty much sums it up. There’s no way to know, because it depends on the crash. In general, being closer to the exit is better, but there’s no telling which exit (until it’s too late).

But here’s one thing we do know about very small children in planes: they are safer if they are strapped in. Seems obvious, and yet you are still allowed to hold a child under 2 on your lap on planes. The research shows that there is no way you will be able to hold onto that child in a crash or sudden deceleration, but you can still try. And given the price of seats, I can see why this is still allowed. But parents should know that it is not nearly as safe as having the child in a car seat--in a separate seat.

In 1995, a mother held fast to her 9-month-old during a crash landing in Charlotte, NC, but she physically could not compete with the G-forces of the violent landing. Her child went flying out of her arms and died of massive head trauma. The mother lived. After that, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all children be restrained, no matter their age. The FAA objected with an interesting line of reasoning, according to a 1995 New York Times article:

“The agency contends that if families have to buy tickets for babies, some will drive instead and as a result more will die. The agency maintains that the problem of child safety in aviation barely exists; for a 15-year period beginning in 1978, a study the agency commissioned found, only one child death would have been prevented, along with one serious injury and three to six minor injuries in aviation accidents involving United States air carriers.”

Of course, if we are worried about plane tickets being so expensive that they force people to drive...well, the FAA should’ve gotten into the price-fixing business a long time ago. The debate over lap-babies has continued, but the bottom line is clear: it’s safer to have your kid in a seat of his or her own, and in a seat belt.

But if you really want to protect your child, nevermind all that: Put your kid in the back seat of your car when you’re driving to the airport. Buckle everyone’s seat belts and turn off your cell phone. Now we’re getting somewhere.

It’s nice to take a break from the mayhem of the moment and reflect on the mayhem of days gone by. I have a piece in this week’s issue of TIME about Eleanor Roosevelt--a First Lady ahead of her time (and ours). I was struck by what she managed to get away with--close friendships with pacifists, lesbians and men half her age, an apartment in the Village, a role shaping U.S. policy on segregation, the military and education, among other things.

I’m not saying it was easy; the woman was under surveillance by her own government and she lost as many battles as she won. But she and her husband did pull it off for 12 years. And then, after he died, she became even more influential--at the UN, the NAACP, in her six-days-per-week nationally syndicated column (which reads like a blog, but not a terrible one), and on and on.

I do think that the cliché is true: No other First Lady resembles Eleanor Roosevelt so much as Hillary Clinton. Both were smart, ambitious, guarded women with charismatic husbands who could not be trusted around attractive women. Both were workhorses who cared about policy as much as politics. And both were more powerful after their husbands’ presidencies were over. One difference is that Hillary Clinton was more honest--she did not try to hide her influence. And she was probably less powerful in the White House as a result.

It’s ridiculous to predict Michelle Obama’s tenure this early on. But reading the histories of First Ladies, I did notice how almost every one is alleged to have “broken the mold” at one point or another. Michelle Obama already “broke the mold"--just because of her skin color. I suppose the reason for this neverending mold-breaking is that there really is no mold for First Lady. It’s a job without a mandate or a mission. So each woman reinvents it, like it or not. So far, Michelle has two things in common with Eleanor: They both planted gardens a the White House, and they both made a point of being a citizen of Washington, DC--the city, not the theme park. But these are early days…

If you happened to check Twitter this week you probably saw many reactions to Monday’s red line metrorail crash here in DC. Commuters were instantly “tweeting” about the crash, the horrific commute that night and the following day, and their experiences with WMATA. Couple that with a wide range of responses from all over the country, and Twitter revealed an interesting look at people’s reactions.

Some Twitter users posted the traditional responses:  “My prayers and thoughts are with the families of the dead & injured due to the Metro train accident on the Red Line here in the DC area.” Others commented on their experience with the red line, however brief or seemingly unimportant: “Slightly horrified by DC metro crash yesterday. Rode the red line when I was there for inauguration. Prayers for the peeps.” or “The pics from the Metro accident are disturbing. My bro just took the red line to the zoo a few days ago. Prayers out to everyone affected.” Even one ride on DC’s red line qualifies you to join the “What If?” debate (i.e., “What if I had been there?” “What if this had happened when I went to the Inauguration?").

Why do we do this after every tragedy? I heard the story of a Washington, DC, mom who on Monday decided to drive instead of hopping on the red line during rush hour, thus essentially avoiding the crash. Certainly she’s justified in wondering what would have happened had she taken the metro instead. But that’s not the same thing as visiting DC and riding the red line to the zoo for a mere 15 minutes.

Or maybe it is. The brain needs predictability.  We want our subways to arrive on time, make the same stops and generally be the thing helping us get to and from work each day.

Unfortunately, events like Monday’s accident aren’t predictable. Perhaps to make sense of what feels like a random disaster, we have to attach it to something familiar.  In this particular instance, if you’ve ever been on the red line, it’s suddenly clear that this could easily happen to you. The brain is unsettled by this notion, so we marvel at it, trying to resolve the dissonance-- trying to come up with some way to find (or create) causality: “Will be sitting in the absolute middle of metro cars in the future. Scary, sad events on the Red Line yesterday.”

Accidents happen. One way to compound the damage is to keep important information from the public--the very people who need the information most. You end up with what happened last night in DC--hundreds of passengers stranded without any idea what was happening. Passengers stuck in trains and stations for hours, hearing regular announcements about a “train experiencing mechanical difficulties” up ahead--not hearing what CNN and the Washington Post were reporting at the same time, about a massive collision that paralyzed the entire Metro system.

A revealing chronology of alerts in the Washington Post today. You can see that the people given the least amount of information last night were the passengers riding Metro--who received the “WMATA Alerts” listed below. In fact, the WMATA press releases were much more honest and detailed than the alerts that went out to the public. It appears that Metro authorities trusted reporters (of all people) more than their customers.

Excerpted from the Post‘s chronology:

5:00 p.m.: Approximate time of crash between Fort Totten and Takoma stations.

5:18 p.m.: WMATA Alert:(ID 55699) Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland and Takoma due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been requested.

5:29 p.m.: Washington Post confirms crash and derailment.

5:36 p.m.: WMATA Alert: (ID 55699) Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave and Silver Spring stations due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been requested.

5:36 p.m.: WMATA Press Release on derailment and “collision.”

6:03 p.m.: WMATA Press Release confirms first two fatalities.

6:07 p.m.: WMATA Alert: (ID 55699) Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave and Silver Spring stations due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle Bus service has been established. Customers should add an additional 30 minutes to their travel time.

This is a familiar pattern in the history of disasters. The people in charge are often very reluctant to share information with the most important actors--the regular people at the scene. Why is that? What is the built-in bias at work here?

People in positions of authority have a tendency to distrust the public. They believe that, given frightening information, the public will panic.

It’s a prejudice that pervades many bureaucracies, even on a normal day. In my book, I write about one of the routine announcements used on the Metro system: “In the event of a fire,” the taped announcement warns, “remain calm and listen for instructions.” That’s it. Hundreds of conversations and thoughts were interrupted for that announcement. What was the message? That the officials who run the subway system do not trust me. They think I will dissolve into hysterics and ignore instructions in the event of a fire.

Consider what the people who created this announcement did not do: they had an excellent opportunity to tell me how many subway fires happen in the D.C. system each year. That would have gotten my attention. They also had a chance to explain why it’s almost always better to stay in the subway car in case of a fire (because the rails on the track can electrocute you, and the tunnels are, in some places, too narrow to fit through if a train is coming). But instead, they just told me not to panic.

The panic myth is pervasive, but the research reveals it to be false: Panic is extremely hard to find in the history of disasters. Why? Because it’s not in our survival interest to panic. Groups of frightened humans (like frightened chimpanzees and other animals) tend to form groups, stick together and show each other unusual courtesy. That is the kind of behavior that Metro should plan for.

People will do remarkable things when they have information. On 9/11, the people who saved the most lives were regular people who had information. Passengers on Flight 93 had time and ability to learn what had become of the other hijacked planes. They considered their options, discussed a plan and took action. It was regular people who prevented a plane from plowing into Congress or the White House--the headquarters, ironically, of the people in charge. Regular people must be trusted.

Horrific story from the evening commute here in DC. One Red Line Metrorail train slammed into another, plowing into it from behind with enough force to launch it up on top of the other train. The Washington Post is reporting at least 6 deaths and an estimated 70 injuries. The collision happened between two stations just south of the border between DC and Maryland. No idea yet what caused the accident.

But it’s already clear that as in most sizeable emergencies, regular people did the hardest work in the most important moments--before rescue workers arrived. Getting out of a wrecked subway train is extremely difficult. Between the darkness (due to the loss of power) and the twisted cage of metal, it is very hard to get oriented.

It doesn’t help that subway cars in general are challenging to evacuate. If you’ve ever looked at the instructions for escaping from a Metro train, you’ll see what I mean. It involves finding the center door, lifting the cover of an emergency door-release handle, pulling the lever and then sliding open the LEFT (not right) door. If you want to know more, you can check out this very irritating Flash animation on the WMATA site. As with many of the announcements on the Metro, a good deal of time is spent telling you to listen to the people in charge (even though, in major emergencies, the people in charge are unlikely to be able to help you for a good long while).

One eye witness told the Washington Post that people inside one of the wrecked cars were beating on the windows, trying to get out. Many were on their cell phones. As is so often the case in disasters, people did remarkable things for one another. Survivors report fear, confusion and kindness--but not panic:

“In the moments after the crash, passengers made tourniquets out of T-shirts, struggled to pull debris off others and sought to calm the hysterical and the gravely wounded. Inside the worst-hit car, waiting on ambulances and the “jaws of life,” an Anglican priest led a group in the Lord’s Prayer. On the ground below, a civilian Pentagon employee told a wounded girl he wouldn’t accept her last wish—she was going to live.”

I’m struck by the similarities to the behavior of passengers in London after the 7/7 transit bombings in 2005. This description is from the foreword to the invaluable Report of the 7 July Review Committee:

“What is clear is that the humanitarian response to these events was astounding; from the passengers who helped and supported each other, to the underground workers, ‘blue light’ response teams, shop staff, office workers, hotel employees and passers-by who offered what help they could. The individual acts of bravery and courage are too numerous to list. Often the heroes have been reticent to come forward and have stayed silent about the role they played, known only to those that they helped.”

But the part of this report that I think of most often is the section that explains the fundamental flaw of most emergency plans. We don’t know yet whether this lesson applied today in DC, but it’s worth repeating. I have yet to see a big disaster in which this was not true on some level:

“There is an overarching, fundamental lesson to be learnt from the response to the 7 July attacks, which underpins most of our findings and recommendations. The response on 7 July demonstrated that there is a lack of consideration of the individuals caught up in major or catastrophic incidents. Procedures tend to focus too much on incidents, rather than on individuals and on processes rather than people. Emergency plans tend to cater for the
needs of the emergency and other responding services, rather than explicitly addressing the needs and priorities of the people involved.”

Making the rounds on Twitter…