Reddit reviews The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

Yep.

>Why did they decide to stick around until someone else practically dragged them out?

It's actually a common reaction in emergency situations.

Argh, I can't find an online citation right now. I read about it in The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley

I have a great deal of affection for Japanese culture and it's the place I most want to visit someday, but I must address one thing: the misconception that there wasn't any looting in Japan after the tsunami. The general line of thinking seems to be there wasn't any, while we Americans acted like animals after Katrina. This simply isn't true.

1. There was looting in Japan after the tsunami. For example: From a website of Kyodo News, Japan’s version of CNN, headlined, in Japanese: “In Miyagi, police report 40 robberies by those taking advantage of the earthquake.”
   
   
2. Much of the reporting on Katrina was overblown and sensationalized by cable network news. The reality is people in crisis situations mostly behave the same across cultures and continents, which is to say generally orderly with some looting in times of starvation and some crime by those looking capitalize on the opportunity. See also: The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes.
   
   
3. What we do have is a news bias problem, as photos of white people in Katrina were often labeled as "finding" food and photos of black people were often labeled as "looting".
   

http://www.amazon.com/Unthinkable-Survives-When-Disaster-Strikes/dp/0307352897
The bumps between the sections of concrete highway do not count ;)

There is an excellent book called The Unthinkable about different reactions people have during disasters. I highly, highly recommend it. There are a couple accounts about 9/11 in there. Most fascinating was the thought processes that people have in disasters. For example, one lady remembers when she saw the second plane crash into the tower out the window she thought "OMG the pilots must have been racing! How stupid! Don't they know that people could die!" Our brains need a narrative and fill in the blanks, however bizarre it might be.

audiobook torrent in case you want to listen along after you buy it:
http://theaudiobookbay.com/audio-books/the-unthinkable-who-survives-when-disaster-strikes-and-why/

If you want to understand it, read The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why. No, seriously, get your hands on a copy one way or another -- it's a good read, and contains disaster psychology information that is absolutely vital.

Anyway, what you're describing is one of the known quirks of human group psychology that people really, really need to understand so that they can overcome it. Something nearly identical happened in the Towers on 9/11 -- people delayed evacuating when they could see fire and smell smoke, and then dithered in the stairwells on the way down. Many people have died because of a known bug in the human brain that you can train yourself to overcome.

Sorry if this comes on a bit strong, but it really is a very important book. I'm buying copies for my friends and family members and sitting on them until they read it.