How many of us remember the Wally World in NY where the worker was crushed to death by the crowd?

[Fumesucker]

I recall that was a little over a year or so ago, Black Friday I believe..

Multiply that by about one million and you have conditions in Haiti right now. The crowd in NY crushed a man to death just to get to some discounted baubles before everyone else did, the people in Haiti are starving and dying of thirst.

I don't blame those who are worried about security when handing out food, water and care, it could very easily and very quickly get extremely nasty.

[Vincardog]

1. That only happened because Wally World wanted it to. They treat customers like cattle and refused to...

employ rudimentary crowd control.

[KittyWampus]

2. Point being, crowds are different animals than individual human beings. Different dynamics

Hence the requirements for crowd control and security.

[gateley]

18. Yes -- that "mob mentality" is infectious. I recall after the NY power outage,

normal, upstanding human beings found themselves running down the street with stolen TVs in their hands, going WTF??

We're definitely not in our 'right' minds in such situations. And when we don't know if we're going to live or die and that survival instinct kicks in...

[Fumesucker]

3. How much worse then no crowd control at all?

And people desperate to get food and water?

[Vincardog]

14. It could be that the Haitian people are more civilized than the average walmart shopper.

[Fumesucker]

17. Would that were so..

But I fear you are mistaken, the only way to find out for sure is by trying and at that point if things go bad it will be too late.

Angry, desperate crowds are the same worldwide unfortunately.

[lunatica]

4. I remember that story

Poor guy opened the doors and was thrown down and trampled.

[doc03]

5. What about the rock concert where several people got

trampled to death when they opened the doors, in Cincinnati I believe.

[votingupstart]

6. you are suggesting that thirsty/starving/injured people will not remain calm, cool and collected?

WOW.....(where is that pesky sarcasm button)

.... and to think so many are advocating just dumping bottles of water and packages of food on to large crowds and believing that the crowds will some how evenly distribute and allocate the resources in an appropriate, calm, and orderly fashion.

[doc03]

7. Boy I got flamed for even mentioning that yesterday, I am

glad to see at least a few people around here have some common sense. I think some of those are just Republicans trolling this board to stir shit.

[votingupstart]

13. i have first hand experience working in disaster response and recovery

in Haiti no less -- i will tell you that people will start killing others based on RUMORS of food shortages / water shortages / etc. If you go in without a plan and the resources needed to sustain yourself, your crew and your operations - you have just added more victims to the disasters toll.

while i did see some rather trollish posts in other threads, i think the thing that gets me is instead of pulling together and helping out we sit behind our keyboards and armchair general the workers on the ground. it kills me to be sitting here in school and not able to go back to Haiti.

[Catshrink]

8. I thought Wally World = Walt Disney World

and Wal-Mart was Sprawlmart. I am easily confused.

[NutmegYankee]

12. No. It is a slang term for wal-mart.

I heard it and used it frequently in college.

[Bluebear]

9. An aside, Isn't Wally World in Orlando?

[Catshrink]

15. It always was to me.

[Bluebear]

16. a la "Vacation" movie.

But, whatever :)

[dustbunnie]

10. That's exactly the incident I was thinking about when I started reading some of the posts...

written by the resident yahoo, John Wayne, armchair strategist, disaster experts. I see there are others who are thinking :eyes: and :spank: too.

[sandnsea]

11. 3 million in Port au Prince, 9 million in Haiti n/t