In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

The deadly tornado that killed four Boy Scouts on Wednesday night in Iowa was a story of both terrible tragedy and heroicism and teamwork under great duress on the part of the Scouts and their leaders.

As Iowa Governor Chet Culver said yesterday, “These young men … literally saved lives during this time period when emergency management could not get to them… [They] were the real heroes…They immediately started helping each other in this time of need [and] set up their own mini-triage unit.”

But the fact that the boys performed so well in this emergency situation should not be a surprise, for a couple of reasons:

1) As Amanda Ripley’s wonderful new book www.theunthinkable.com so vividly illustrates, not only do people usually not panic in disaster situations but more often than not they rise to the occasion as the Boy Scouts did. This is an important, but not necessarily well known, fact that should be better understood by government officials and the media — as well as the public themselves.

2) These Boy Scouts had just completed emergency preparedness training at the camp. As one scout told ABC’s Good Morning America: “We just did a realistic first aid where somebody got dressed up in fake gash on his right arm, and he bursts through the door. So that pretty much helped the participants to know what to do for the tornado.” To me, it just underscores the importance of at least some advance preparedness training and drilling for young people (and everyone for that matter). ’Be prepared’ is the Boy Scouts motto — the events of Wednesday night show the value of others adopting it as well.