The Jordan Harbinger Show
1106: Amanda Ripley | The Secrets to Surviving an Unthinkable Disaster
Tue, 21 Jan 2025
Want to survive a disaster? The Unthinkable author Amanda Ripley explains why knowing your neighbors matters more than hoarding supplies. What We Discuss with Amanda Ripley: Contrary to popular belief, people rarely panic in disasters. Instead, the biggest challenge is often lethargy and denial — people tend to freeze or remain passive rather than exhibit chaotic behavior. This denial phase can be deadly as it delays taking necessary action. In most disasters, the people who save lives are regular civilians, not first responders (who often can't arrive quickly enough). However, this dynamic is being threatened by declining trust — not just in institutions, but between neighbors and community members. Our risk assessment is driven more by emotion ("dread") than rational calculation. This explains why people often fear the wrong things — like choosing to drive instead of fly, even though driving is statistically much more dangerous. In disasters, humans experience significant sensory and cognitive impairments: vision can narrow by up to 70%, people can temporarily lose sight or hearing, and time perception becomes distorted. This is why having prior training and clear protocols is crucial. The good news is that disaster response skills can be learned through simple, practical steps: Practice box breathing (4 counts in, hold 4, out 4, hold 4) to stay calm under stress, take free CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training in your area, and create basic emergency plans like identifying exits in buildings you frequent. These small preparations can make a huge difference in a crisis. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1106 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What are the common misconceptions about human behavior in disasters?
Just like in any expert field, people have blinders on when it comes to what people need to hear and understand. So There are exceptions to this, right? There are some incredibly creative, empathetic and open-minded emergency managers all over this country. But in general, yeah, I think that a lot of plans are designed not according to how humans actually operate in disasters.
I grew up in Michigan and we had tornadoes pretty regularly. I grew up there. I was there for decades. I went to college and law school there. I don't know the difference between Tornado Warning and Tornado Watch. And I've seen dozens of them, at least, over my life. So if you move somewhere and this is the first or second time you're seeing that, you're just not going to get it. You're right.
It's a W word for both. I'm like, if it's a watch, are they watching for where it is? No, they're wondering if there is one. Okay, fine. A warning. Are they warning us that there might be one or are they warning us that there is one? I don't know the answer to that. They use the same logo in the news. It's just the tornado. They use the same color. It's branded to the TV station.
It's not like one's yellow and one's red. It's just totally ridiculously confusing, especially for younger people or non-native speakers or literally somebody who has a high level of education and just can't remember the difference between warning and watch. I wonder if my parents who spent 80 years there, I wonder if even they know the difference, honestly.
So this is a great, a small example, but a great example. Another one would be I was on the subway in D.C. where I live and an alert, like a warning came on over the loudspeaker and it said, in case of emergency, do not panic and listen for further instruction. So it's like, first of all, anytime anyone in charge tells you not to panic, you know you're in trouble.
Because it signals that they don't trust you and that they also don't understand how humans normally behave in disasters, which, again, is not to panic. But then to just say, you know, be passive, don't get in our way, listen, and we'll tell you what to do, again, is a total misunderstanding of how most disasters work.
So usually everyone needs to be equipped with some baseline amount of knowledge about their risks and their environment. And then you're going to be much better off as the whole collective. But those kinds of warnings reveal a bias against the public and also just an unintentional ignorance about how people behave.
You give the London train bombing example as how plans are designed to benefit officials and not the average Joe. Tell me about this, because it's frustrating to hear examples like this, right? And you just think, oh, man, nobody thought of a better way to handle this.
Yes, I think you're talking about the July 7th, 2005 terrorist attack on London buses and subway trains, which killed 52 people, I believe. Afterward, you heard a lot about the city's extensive surveillance camera system. which helped with the investigation. But less well known is how unhelpful technology was to regular people on trains in the moment.
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Chapter 2: Why is trust important in disaster situations?
Chapter 3: How can people prepare for disasters effectively?
For whatever reason, been in a couple of different gunshot incidents recently, gunfire incidents. I was fine. But because I know that other people around me will, depending on the situation, deny and disbelieve what's happening, I know not to trust their cues necessarily. If I hear a gunshot, I know what that is. So I'm going to take action.
This is the kind of thing where just a little bit of knowledge can be really helpful. Otherwise, you can really get stuck in that phase.
That is quite insightful. When I was in the denial phase of this taxi kidnap thing, which for people who don't know, I've told it on the show, it's called Kidnap Me Once, the episode. It's quite old. But one of the things that happened was I was making excuses for the driver. I was like, oh, maybe there's traffic or maybe there's an accident. And then I said, hey, why are we taking this way?
And he said, I need to ask for directions. And I was like, yeah, we're going to the center of town where the presidential palace is. That answer is like the wrong answer. If he had said there's traffic because I just came up this way, I would have been like, OK. But he said something that just I knew in my heart of hearts was not true.
But if he hadn't said that, if I'm honest with myself, I probably would have just believed everything. his excuse because I was so uncomfortable with what was going on.
Right. And, you know, you're not driving.
No. And I couldn't open the door.
Yeah. It's very delicate. You want everything to be OK. And you also don't want to create friction with this person. I've definitely been in a situation with Uber drivers or cab drivers. It's pretty terrifying. And it's good that you realized it because you're right. Today, you'd be on the phone and you would just be not even noticing.
Right. You just look up or unless you're using Uber or something like that, you just look up and you'd be like, this doesn't look right. My brother-in-law took a cab in Istanbul, and he wanted to go somewhere to a certain neighborhood. And he likes to get to know the area where he is, so he was following along on Google Maps. And he's like, we missed the turn. And the driver's like, no, we didn't.
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