I love how you all just jump on my case assuming I am this idiot that wanders around the ship clueless. Don't you think, being that I have actually planned evacuations for THOUSANDS of people in case of the "what if" scenarios, that I would still go to the muster stations. In additiona to actually having had to evacuate (not just planned) thousands during air raid attacks while in Baghdad that I have actually BTDT unlike probably ALL of you on here, being evacuated and actually being one to evacuate are totally different. If you look at fire escape maps. All will show the route to the nearest emergency exit. Some will show alternate routes. My point is what is the alternate route? Yes, it is simple. In the case of the muster station not being accessible, report to Buene Vista Theatre (or whatever location, just used that as an example). Sure they are trained, but I am asking about routes, etc. if I show up with hundreds of panicked people screaming, and running all over, do you think I want to stick around trying to hear over the people and not understand what he is saying? Or perhaps, if we know the alternate plan and he simply says go to Plan B or Go to Buene Vista Theatre. Then I don't have to await further instruction or look clueless or insist I go to my muster station despite the fact that it's a one way crowd heading away from the muster station, we will have already prepared by practicing the route several times.
I clearly stated we would go to the muster station in the event of an emergency. But you can't sit there and tell me that with the alarms going off, people screaming, people running around like crazy, that you are going to hear the CMs telling you where to go and that they will have small groups calmly going where they are asked to go. If you do believe that, then I suggest you go through an actual emergency where lives are on the line and it's not just a drill. I have had experience in this, so yes, I can say that with that experience, a plan B for generic relocation is not a hard or complex thing to tell passengers. Do they not do that on airplanes? In the event of a water landing, use seat bottom, in the event of a fire, use extinguisher, follow the arrows to the nearest exit, if exit is blocked, go to a different exit.
So asking them a simple question of if this location is blocked, where is the next location we should meet. Not that I would go to that one first, I am not an idiot. In every evacuation plan, you have the initial "muster station" that everyone should meet at. If that station is blocked, and the passageways are blocked with hundreds of people going the opposite direction because maybe they heard where to go, but because it's so crowded, I can't get close enough to hear where that location is, then I will automatically assume that my muster station group is going to the alternative location. Not just running around panicked.
I prepare for worst case scenarios, that has been my training and I have trained and implemented such training onto others as well. I do not think it's a very complicated to answer, if this place is on fire, where is the alternate location. I want to practice this as a family, I want my family to know the routes, we are the family that walks the emergency escape routes several times to where if I told my kid we had to evacuate, they would show me where to go. We are the family that actually tries on the life jackets and makes sure that they fit. I refuse to be a blind panicked sheep going to a muster station because that's just what we're supposed to do. I want to understand the dynamics, what alternate scenarios they have in place. Because I want to know ahead of time, that makes me a danger, no, sorry, that makes me informed.
