[jamisteven]

In 2010 I was working at a large hotel / convention center in Nashville, at about 8pm we were preparing for a massive event where a company had bought out one of the venues, the entire hotel was booked solid. In the days prior to this, we had torrential downpours and heavy rain but this was normal, until it wasnt. Out of nowhere we get reports that the underground tunnels in the hotel used for employees to get around were taking in water and it was quickly determined that the cumberland river had overflown after the army core of engineers put a damn down and could not get it back up. I cant begin to explain the chaos that ensued there with that many people and the hotel essentially being on a dead end. 3k guests, likely more than that in employees, all scattering to get to higher ground and out of a bottle neck. Hotel was safely evacuated but the entire place was underwater by the next day. That said, the "orientation" section in this article I think is absolutely necessary.

[nextlevelwizard]

How often does this happen? Once in a life time? This is the kind of stuff that makes you go nutty. Of course you _can_ try to prepare for everything and anything, but does it actually make sense to worry about being in a flash flood like that? I doubt it.

[xtajv]

"I don't have to worry about $PARTICULAR_DISASTER_SCENARIO because I've already precomputed a strategy for that scenario by ruminating about it."

!=

"I don't have to worry about $PARTICULAR_DISASTER_SCENARIO because I'm generally organized and well-situated above a certain threshold: If you picked a random disaster scenario $x out of a hat, chances are pretty good that I'd already be equipped to handle it."

P.S. Not trying to "counter-argue", just sharing a different perspective.

[vertis]

Indeed, big companies often do disaster prepareness exercises from a business continuity point of view. I remember doing one 15 years ago at a Big 4 accounting firm. Failing everything (including my little bit) across to secondary site in another city, and it had to be done by someone other than me (since I was the main person responsible for my system).

As they say, you should always check you can restore your backups.

[dsr_]

Those are both reasonable attitudes.

Once you've actually successfully navigated any particular disaster scenario, you will try to avoid situations that look like they could contribute to a repeat. My wife once had a laptop stolen out of the trunk of a car; she is now hyperaware of where and how she parks and what is visible through the windows.

[pengaru]

The orientation section doesn't seem incredibly inconvenient nor costly. It's basically just establishing situational awareness in an unfamiliar place. What are you getting kept from by doing it? A dozen extra minutes of terrible hotel TV?

On the topic of flash floods esp. when traveling; I make a conscious effort to not park/stay anywhere liable to flash-flood, and that requires some situational awareness in the sense of at least knowing your surroundings and the area's geography/climate/seasonal weather patterns. We recently narrowly avoided getting caught in [0], and that was with us making a conscious effort to not spend too much time in any of the low-lying areas, not even for a day hike - we'd always park somewhere relatively high and simply avoided hiking any of the low regions. That storm happened just one day after we were there passing through that exact spot. The tourists staying at that popular hotel probably didn't think about how they're staying on the floor of an enormous desert valley in a monsoon-y time of year. By failing to prepare you're preparing to fail...

[0] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-05/unpreced...

[nextlevelwizard]

>What are you getting kept from by doing it? A dozen extra minutes of terrible hotel TV?

I don't go to a hotel to be in my room. If I am traveling there is a reason to do so.

All in all I think this paranoid fear of hotels and travel is something specific to US. I've never had issues with security in a hotel or even given it a a thought. In normal world you don't need to worry about this kind of stuff.

My biggest worry in hotel rooms these days is how to rig the A/C to stay on while I'm out.

[Scoundreller]

> My biggest worry in hotel rooms these days is how to rig the A/C to stay on while I'm out.

Heated blanket on the thermostat? Or do they have timed-shutoffs or door-key based systems that cuts off the electricity when you leave? What do you do then?

[nextlevelwizard]

Most of them just have a slot for your room key to turn on the electricity and/or A/C, but many times it is a physical which i.e. it doesn't care what gets stuffed into the hole and often there is some kind of brochure that can be folded/ripped into card shape to trip the switch.

[talliedthoughts]

Ask for a second key and leave it in the slot?

[kingofpandora]

Those slots don't require a specific key. Put your library card in there and it'll work fine.

[Scoundreller]

They get suspicious when I pay for X occupancy but request X+Y keys.

[grayfaced]

Preparing specifically for a flood would be silly but you can do some common sense preparation that works for any number of potential disasters.

1. Know your egress routes

2. Be aware of your surroundings

3. Be ready to move

4. Have a communication plan

5. Know places to go in emergency (e.g. Consulate or group rally points)

6. If it doesn't feel right, leave.

[smeej]

The variety of situations in which being confident in my escape plan would be helpful is pretty high. The effort required to review a basic escape plan ("follow the route mapped out on the inside of my door") is pretty low.

I don't really need to know the odds of each specific reason I might need to get outside to determine it's worth a short walk to the end of the hall to confirm I know which door leads to the stairs and where I end up outside once I go down them.

[netsharc]

Your comment makes me think of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Corporate_securi...

TL;DR: he got hired as a security officer for Morgan Stanley's WTC offices, and he made the employees regularly practice evacuations.

> Rescorla wanted the company out of the building because he continued to feel, as did Hill, that the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers.[17] He recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan office space, mentioning that labor costs were lower in New Jersey and that the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed because the company's lease at the World Trade Center would not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla's insistence, all employees (including senior executives) then practiced emergency evacuations every three months.[18]

> After Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, the company eventually occupied 22 floors in the South Tower and several floors in a building nearby. Rescorla's office was on the South Tower’s 44th floor.[4] Feeling that the authorities lost legitimacy after they failed to respond to his 1990 warnings, he concluded that employees of Morgan Stanley, which was the largest tenant in the World Trade Center, could not rely on first responders in an emergency and needed to empower themselves through surprise fire drills, in which he trained employees to meet in the hallway between stairwells and go down the stairs two by two to the 44th floor.[15] Rescorla's strict approach to these drills put him into conflict with some high-powered executives, who resented the interruption to their daily activities, but he nonetheless insisted that these rehearsals were necessary to train the employees in the event of an emergency. He timed employees with a stopwatch when they moved too slowly and lectured them on fire emergency basics.[15][18]

[dctoedt]

More about Rescorla's "epic death" — and his "epic life," as a "Celtic warrior," including legendary performance in combat as a young U.S. Army officer in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, written up in We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young — from the Washington Post shortly after 9/11: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/10/28/...

[Scoundreller]

Simpsons nuclear plant fire drill video: https://youtu.be/XTElSJExL4U

[teddyh]

Always have a backup plan:

https://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/356-as-a-former-sysadmin-i-al...

[itronitron]

The more important thing is to have a state of mind where you are willing to recognize the early indicators that a situation is only going to get worse and take action to exit that situation.

Also, if you park a vehicle at the hotel try to avoid spots that would likely be blocked by fire engines.

[irrational]

Corps of engineers. From French corps d'armée (16c.), from French corps (old French cors) "body," from Latin corpus "body".