If anything brings out the neurosis of group behavior, it's fire alarms.
Last night, I went to see "Ocean's 12" (a somewhat-hard-to-follow heist film) with Ben, Andrew, Sarah, Ruchita, and Alix. About halfway through the movie, the projector suddenly cut off and a pre-recorded voice came over the PA: "A fire has been reported in the building. While we assess the situation, please walk calmly to the nearest exit." This message was accompanied by various whoops, bleeps, and bloops, all quite loud.
Most of the people in the theater stood up and began to move to the marked exits, but many people remained seated. Even those who were moving towards the exits were laughing and walking quite slowly. This particular theater, Regal Cinemas in Rockville, is entirely underground. A big fire on the ground level would render escape impossible. Mmm, crispy.
We emerged from the theater and massed with the rest of the crowd on other side of the street from the theater entrance. Already, a fire truck was outside. We all watched as two firemen calmly walked into the building, with only half their gear. Moments later, they ran back outside, threw on oxygen tanks/masks, and grabbed their fire axes.
Soon, a clump of theatergoers were crowding around the Regal manager, who was handing out refund stubs on the sidewalk. A middle-aged woman was complaining that there had been a fire at the last movie she'd been to. One young man in a t-shirt was angrily shouting at the manager, asking why he couldn't re-enter the building to get his jacket!
By this point, the theater was empty. However, many of the people who had just escaped the theater were entering the restaurant and ice cream shop on the street level of the same building.
That's not to say I didn't participate in the madness. After a few minutes, I was hungry, so I went with Alix into Tara Asia (the aforementioned restaurant...mind you, we got take-out and stood near the exit). While the klaxons continued to blare, people just sat at their dinner tables as though nothing were the matter. Conversation was nearly impossible, and if the insistent screams of the alarm were any indictation, death was imminient.
Admittedly, at Hopkins I don't always observe fire warnings...during a recent false alarm at Homewood, Shivank and I stayed in our rooms until the all-clear was announced. We decided to grab a sandwich at Eddie's and wound up walking downstairs while everyone else filed back to their rooms. I admit, the looks of disdain we got from people walking up the stairs made us feel somewhat badass walking down.
A 1997 survey by the National Fire Protection Association revealed that interviewees drastically overestimated the amount of time between when a smoke alarm goes off and when they can safely be out of the building (in the event of an actual emergency). The average estimate was seven and a half minutes; more than a third of respondants guessed ten minutes or more. In reality, the safety margin is two and a half minutes. And I'm a dork for looking that up.
So why do we ignore fire alarms, or treat them lightly? Well, for one thing, they're false 90% of the time. For another, as the NFPA survey shows, even when we think there's a fire we overestimate our safety margin. And of course, there's the badassity of non-chalance.
.....
But really, the most interesting moment of the Regal incident (which wound up being a small roof fire that was immediately extinguished) was seeing the Tara Asia diners calmly continuing their meals over the wail of the sirens. In that restaurant, people had clearly isolated and selectively ignored their sense of hearing. It reminded me of a restaurant in Paris that I read about, "Dans le Noir" ("In the Dark"):
"Diners sit in a room of inky blackness that the eyes never adjust to. And that's the idea. 'It awakens your other senses,' says the restaurant's owner Edouard de Broglie, who is not blind. 'It alters your perspective, your relations with others. It shows what happens when you can't see.'
"Fingertips seek out familiarity, patting the table for a fork, a plate, a hand to hold. The nose perks up to every passing plate. Under cover of darkness, texture and shape take on new importance. One realizes the role sight plays in the joy of eating."
Remarkable about both situations--Dans le Noir with its complete darkness and Tara Asia with its blaring fire alarm--is how easily we adapt when we've been deprived of one of our senses. In Tara Asia, I saw that diners had changed how they interacted with one another, moving to a gesture-based form of communication. Granted, it seemed crude: at most, pointing toward a particular dish or wine glass and giving a thumbs-up of approval, etc.
Similarly, accounts from the article about Dans le Noir revealed adapted behavior...in this case, the process of getting food from plate to mouth: "Eating is a challenge. A fork scooped across the plate often comes up empty. [They advise] fighting the temptation to eat with your hands -- something a blind person tries to avoid in public. But, lowering the head to the plate seems just fine. Nobody can see."
Undoubtedly, this adaptability is the reason our species has survived the ages. Good old evolution. But...as the highest form of life, you'd think we'd have the sense to avoid burning buildings.
Alas.
-Scoots
