I recently read in an old "Reader's Digest" about 9 trapped coal miners who were saved. It reminded me of the recent news story about the miners who were trapped and how some of the rescuers died, and the efforts to save the trapped survivors had to end. It also reminded me of a story I heard about a foreign city in which near-miss car crashes and bike accidents seem happen all the time. This all made me wonder: How many places are hinged on the edge of disaster?
In a normal situation, once you fix a problem, you put safety measurements in place so that no one ever even approaches that same problem, ever again. But I guess in some areas those safety measures are so bare-bones that the problem is approached all the time.
People must think, "The problem hasn't happened in a while, so we can keep putting off installing those safety programs. After all, taking preventative action is costly and produces no immediate results."
And when disaster finally strikes, if things can still be fixed it makes the news. "Disaster struck, but we made it out alive." But what happens when there is no silver lining to the cloud of disaster? What happens when the disaster is so terrible that no one survives? Hopefully those safety measures, which should have been there all along, will finally be put in place.
One of the scariest things I can think of is the idea that even after a disaster, the proposed safety measures that could have prevented it never go into effect. If this post made you wonder, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.
No comments:
Post a Comment