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SOCIETY SURVIVING DISASTERhospital administrator there who-naturally-began to organize the doctorsand nurses.The sociologists expected to see evi-dence of selfish behavior. But they did not.People kept talking about the orderlinessof it all, says Feinberg. People used whatthey had learned in grade-school fire drills.'Stay in line. Don't push. We'll all get out.'People were queuing up It was just abso-lutely incredible.All of us, but especially people incharge-of a city, a theater, a business-should recognize that people can be trust-ed to do their best at the worst of times.They will do even better if they are encour-aged to playa significant role in their ownsurvival before anything goes wrong. InNew York City, despite the pleas of safetyengineers, meaningful fire drills are stillnot mandatory in skyscrapers. Amongother concerns, the city's Real Estate Boardwas worried that mandatory drills couldlead to injuries that could lead to lawsuits.A lawsuit, then, is more frightening thana catastrophe, which is a shame. Because ifa real disaster should come to pass, peoplewill rise to the expectations set by theirCEO or headwaiter, and they will followtheir leader almost anywhere.How One Person Made a DifferenceIN EVERY DISASTER, BURIED UNDER THErubble is evidence that we can do better.Much of that work is physical-buildingstronger buildings in safer places, for ex-ample. But the work is also psychological.The more control people feel they haveover their predicament, the better theirperformance. When people believe thatsurvival is negotiable, they can bewonder-fully creative. All ittakes is the audacity toimagine that our behavior matters.When the planes struck the Twin Tow-ers on Sept. 2001, Rick Rescorla em-bodied that spirit of survival. The head ofsecurity for Morgan Stanley Dean Witterat the World Trade Center, Rescorla be-lieved that regular people were capable ofgreat achievements, with a bit of leader-ship. He got Morgan Stanley employeesto take responsibility for their survival-which happened almost nowhere else thatday in the Trade Center.Rescorla learned many of the tricksof survival in the military. He was oneof those thick-necked soldier types whospend the second halves of their lives pa-trolling the perimeters of marble lobbiesthe way they once patrolled a battlefield.Born in England, he joined the U.S.mili-tary because he wanted to fight the com-munists in Vietnam. When he got there,he earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star anda Purple Heart in battles memorialized in

the 1992 book by Lieut. General Harold G.Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, W e W ereSold ier s O nc e .. . and Y oun g.He eventually moved to New Jerseyand settled into the life of a security ex-ecutive, but Rescorla still acted, in someways, like a man at war. His unit, MorganStanley, occupied 22 floors of Tower 2 andseveral floors in a nearby building. Afterthe 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103over Lockerbie, Scotland, Rescorla wor-ried about a terrorist attack on the TradeCenter. In 1990, he and an old war buddywrote a report to the Port Authority ofNew Yorkand New Jersey,which owns theTrade Center site, insisting on the needfor more security in the parking garage.Their recommendations, which wouldhave been expensive, were ignored, ac-cording to James B. Stewart's biographyof Rescorla, H ear t oj a Soldier. (The Port

Knowing where togo was the mostimportant thing,saysa 9/11 survivor. ecause your brain-or at least mine-shut down.

Authority did not respond to my requestsfor comment.)Three years later, Ramzi Yousef drovea truck full of explosives into the under-ground parking garage ofthe World TradeCenter, just as Rescorla had predicted.Afterward, Rescorla had the credibilityhe needed. Combined with his muscularpersonality, it was enough to change theculture of Morgan Stanley.Rescorla implicitly understood that hecould turn office workers into survivors.He respected the ability of regular peopleto do better. He understood the danger oflethargy, the importance of aggressivelypushing through the initial stupor andgetting to action. He had watched employ-ees wind down the staircase in 1993, andhe knew it took too long.Rescorla felt i twas foolish to rely on firstresponders to save his employees. His com-pany was the largest tenant in the TradeCenter, a village nestled in the clouds. Mor-gan Stanley's employees would need totakecare of one another. He ordered them not tolisten to any instructions from the Port Au-thorityin areal emergency. Inhis eyes,ithadlostall legitimacy after itfailed torespond tohis 1990 warnings. And soRescorla startedrunning the entire company through hisown frequent, surprise fire drills. He trainedemployees to meet in the hallway betweenthe stairwells and go down the stairs, twoby two, to the 44th floor.

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rSEPT. 11, 2001The Power of Preparat ionIn th e W orld T ra de C en ter a nd o nU nited F lig ht 93, re gul a r p e ople d idextraord ina ry th in gs. eft peo pl efleet he c oll apsein lo we r M a n h a t ta n. A boveM org an Sta n le y s s ec u rit y d ir ec tor RickR escorla sin gs so ng s to kee p em pl oyeesm ov in g to s a f ety in To we r He ha dpredicted a terr o ri st a tt ac k y ea r s b e fo reand he m ade sur e everyone in t hecom pany had train ed accor dingly

The radicalism of Rescorla's drillscannot be overstated. Remember, Mor-gan Stanley is an investment bank. Mil-lionaire, high-performance bankers onthe 73rd floor did not appreciate the in-terruption. Each drill, which pulled bro-kers Offtheir phones and away from theircomputers, cost the company money.But Rescorla did it anyway. His militarytraining had taught him a simple ruleof human nature: the best way to get thebrain to perform under extreme stress isto repeatedly run it through rehearsalsbeforehand.After the first few drills, Rescorla chas-tised employees for moving too slowly inthe stairwell. He started timing them witha stopwatch, and they got faster. He also lec-tured employees about some of the basicsof fire emergencies: Because roof rescuesare rare and extremely dangerous, peopleshould always go down.On the morning of 9iII, Rescorla heardan explosion and saw Tower I burningfrom his office window. A Port Author-ity official came over the P.A. system andurged people to stay at their desks. ButRescorla grabbed his bullhorn, walkie-talkie and cell phone and began systemati-cally ordering Morgan Stanley employeesto get out. They performed beautifully.They already knew what to do, eventhe 250visitors taking a stockbroker train-ing class. They had already been shown

the nearest stairway. Knowing whereto go was the most important thing. Be-cause your brain-at least mine-justshut down. When that happens, youneed to know what to do next, says BillMcMahon, a Morgan Stanley executive.One thing you don't ever want to do is tohave to think in a disaster.On 9irr, some of the dead mightwell have survived if they had receivedRescorla's warnings to always go downrather than up. But in the absence ofotherinformation, some people rememberedthat victims had been evacuated from theroof in 1993.Sothey used the last minutesof their lives to climb to the top of thetowers-only to find the doors locked.As Rescorla stood directing peopledown the stairwell on the 44th floor,the second plane hit-this time strikingabout 38 floors above his head. The build-ing lunged violently, and some peoplewere thrown to the floor. Stop, Rescorlaordered through the bullhorn. Be still.Be silent. Be calm. In response, oonespoke or moved, Stewart writes. It wasas if Rescorla had cast a spell.Rescorla had once led soldiers throughthe night in the Vietcong-controlledCentral Highlands of Vietnam. He knewthe brain responded poorly to fear-buthe also knew it could be distracted. Backthen, he had calmed his men by singingCornish songs from his youth. ow, inthe crowded stairwell, Rescorla sang intothe bullhorn. Men of Cornwall stand yesteady. It cannot be ever said ye for thebattle were not ready. Stand and neveryieldBetween songs, Rescorla called his wife.Stop crying, he said. I have to get thesepeople out safely. If something should hap-pen to me, I want you to know I've neverbeen happier. Youmade my life.Momentslater, he had successfully evacuated thevast majority of Morgan Stanley employ-ees. Then he turned around. He was lastseen on the roth floor, heading upward,shortl y before the tower collapsed. His re-mains have never been found.Rescorla taught Morgan Stanley em-ployees to save themselves. It's a lessonthat has become, somehow, rare and pre-cious.When the tower collapsed, only I3Morgan Stanley colleagues-includingRescorla and four ofhis security officers-were inside. The other 2,687were safe. _R ipley a seni or w rite r at TIME co ver shom eland se cur ity an d risk. T hi s art icle isadapte d fr om The Unthinkable: Who Sur-vives When Disaster Strikes-and Why. 2008 by A m an da R ipley. T o be publishedin the U .S. by C row n Pub li s he rs a division ofRandom H ouse Inc.

5 Ways to ImproveYour DisasterPersonalityWe all have ideas about how we mighthandle an emergency. And we're probablywrong. People who are leaders-or basketcases-in everyday life often won't behavethat same way in a crisis. But we do knowthere are ways to become more resilient,and they don't all involve luck or prayer(although those are good too).1. ATTITUDEPeople who respond well to trauma tend tohave three underlying advantages: a beliefthat they can influence events, an ability tofind meaningful purpose in life's turmoil anda conviction that they can learn from posi-tive and negative experiences. This may belargely a matter of genetic makeup, but it ispossible to teach yourself to be more proac-tive and avoid the victimization trap (if ithappens to me, there's nothing I can do).2. KNOWLEDGESometimes a small amount of informationcan help us tap into a vein of resiliencewe didn't know we had. Did you know thatmost serious plane accidents are surviv-able? The statistics are clear: of all passen-gers involved in serious accidents between1983 and 2000, 56% survived. Once weknow that one fact, we may become moreattentive to in-flight safety briefings, whichin turn can help us move faster to get outof a plane should we ever need to.3. ANXIETY LEVELResearch into scuba-diving and firefightingaccidents has shown that people with gener-ally high anxiety levels tend to overreact toextreme stress. Their brains, overwhelmedby the Situation, sort through their databaseof responses and choose the wrong one(like pulling the breathing apparatus out oftheir mouth underwater). But certain copingdevices-like controlled, rhythmic breath-ing-can keep anxiety under control. Manypolice officers are now trained to do suchbreathing whenever their guns are drawn.4. BODY WEIGHTGet in shape The cruel reality of physics isthat overweight people move more slowlyand need more space, so they have moretrouble fleeing. On 9/11, people with lowphysical abilities were three times as likelyto be hurt while evacuating the Towers.S. TRAININGThe best way to improve performance is topractice. Consider what you are most afraidof (or, even better, which risks are moststatistically relevant to you). If you work in askyscraper, go into the stairway on a regularbasis. Walk down to the ground a few timesa year. If you live in a hurricane alley, packa suitcase and make a plan for evacuatingyour family. It could make a difference.

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