Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

An emergency manager I met in Las Vegas recently called my attention to a December Harvard Business Review piece that is worth a look. The article attempts to explain why the employees of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai went to such extraordinary lengths to help protect the guests during the nightmarish 3-day siege of the hotel.

Restaurant and banquet staff rushed people to safe locations such as kitchens and basements. Telephone operators stayed at their posts, alerting guests to lock doors and not step out. Kitchen staff formed human shields to protect guests during evacuation…

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I am sure it is true that the Japanese are resilient, trained as they have been by a long history of disasters. But am I the only one who finds the reporting on their “stoicism” to be a bit much? Today’s Sidney Morning Herald is just one example of hundreds…

“The stranded hotel guests, consisting mainly of the elderly, nod their heads respectfully, ask important questions and receive detailed and respectful answers. Everywhere, Japan’s stoic resilience and its tightly woven community fabric are on display. Outside the hotel front door is a line of locals waiting…

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I talked to Nightline for this segment on heroism yesterday, and it reminded me of just how slippery the concept is. The show features Richard Camp, a man who was at his local bank when a gunman came in and tried to rob the place. The video from the surveillance cameras is pretty remarkable. You can see how Camp…

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Nice piece by Michael Wilson in the NY Times about Chad Lindsey, the latest (and possibly most self-aware) subway hero. He was waiting for a train when he saw an older man fall into the tracks. Lindsey, an actor from Harbor Springs, Mich., threw down his bag and jumped onto the tracks after him. As he struggled to get the man—now unconscious—back up to the platform, he saw lights approaching in the tunnel. Notice how his mind sorts through his database of options:

“‘I yelled, ‘Contact the…

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We have all heard stories about atrocious tragedies in which no one did anything to help anyone (i.e. the soul-crushing story Kitty Genovese, which is actually a little more complicated than the legend that has grown up around it).

But the more common response looks more like this story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, in which a random group of bystanders rushed into a burning van to rescue five disabled passengers before the vehicle burst into flames. Heroism is a lot more prosaic than we think. *Special thanks to Thomas for sending me…

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