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Disasters In Amanda Ripley's The Unthinkable

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Disasters In Amanda Ripley's The Unthinkable
Now a days, with technology at our fingertips, people are able to hear about all sorts of different disasters going on around the world. We see in the news and on the internet the sad news of plane crashes, a home burning down, a city destroyed by an earth quake, or village flooded by a tsunami. Even with the knowledge of the horrible events occurring we still never think much of it because people feel so disconnected by them. When facing a major disaster many of us cannot comprehend how we would behave, or we would just assume that we would know what to do to survive. After reading Amanda Ripley’s book The Unthinkable, it encourages the reader to confront the typical human responses to the stress and life threatening disasters. The major …show more content…
When hit with a 45 foot tsunami, 100% of the community was able to survive. This was possible because every man, women, and child knew how to act proactively when a disaster is expected. If the ground shook, everyone went to the same high hill, and stayed there. They never considered a false evacuation a waste of time (138). This positive and accepting mentality that disasters can happen and the people have control over how the disaster affects their community is what lead to the communities continued success. In the town of Samoa, they also started creating the community mentality of practicing for a disaster. The CEO of a local company planned a community wide evacuation drill. He gave them a route and directions; the whole community was able to walk that route in 10 minutes. If this evacuation was for a true tsunami, the people of community would have been safe. The organizer of this drill is Troy Nicolini was stated saying that “he planned to do this drill once a year and wanted to expand it to other towns” and that “You have to practice the stuff that’s important, I hope that this will think less about the tsunami. You have a plan, and you don’t have to worry”

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