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I do not understand the mentality. Companies do not care for your well-being. Don't die for them just because your manager is an idiot that says "stay put".
We have the hindsight with full knowledge of the risk they were taking. I'd bet they only thought they were risking their next paycheck, not their lives.
You think floodwaters rising towards your building isn't sufficient signs to know that you're in a dangerous situation?
I'm sorry but I've seen enough in life to know you do not fuck with water on the move. Floods are dangerous as fuck. If the water is rising around you, get the fuck out of dodge or as high up as you can get.
That area has never had that level of flooding since it was settled. Sure, everyone knows floods are dangerous, but not even the meteorologists were expecting the extent of flooding they actually got.
Have some humility and realize that you have access to knowledge now that would have sounded crazy before the events.
Nobody has ever been surprised by flood waters before. Paths of travel in low lying areas have never been cut off unexpectedly before. It must just be these dumb workers fault they drowned. /s
I think people are generally slow to realize that they are in a life-or-death situation. I'm not talking about just the victims here, but rather about everyone accustomed to living in safety (including the bosses who told the victims to stay). We're so used to making choices where death is not a potential outcome that we simply don't take the possibility into account.
I was in downtown Manhattan on 9/11, close enough to the World Trade Center that I felt the building I was in shake when the towers were hit. The funny thing is that I wasn't scared. I wasn't even horrified. I couldn't see the towers from my window but I watched the smoke rising and experienced only a strange excitement. I didn't leave the area until they told us to, hours later. (I don't blame them. They were as stunned as I was.) The whole thing didn't feel real.
Now I know that I was in absolutely no danger (except from all the pollutants I ended up breathing after they eventually made us come back to the area before the air was clean) but I couldn't have known that at the time.
Edit: The thing with the pollutants is a good example too. I could smell that the air wasn't clean; everyone could. They told us that they were monitoring the air quality and I trusted them despite having my throat sore by the time I went home every day from the irritants in the dust I was breathing. Hell, I could see the dust rising nearby when cranes loaded debris from the towers onto barges and I still just did what I was told with no objections.
Homesslessness in the US is about a coin flip off for death or suffering, every hour of every day. Quitting your job or getting fired for insubordination prevents you from collecting unemployment, and most Americans have less than a weeks expenses saved due the the last 60 years of low pay and exponentially rising expenses, causing homelessness if you lose your job. You might die in a hurricane induced flood, but that risk can seem less than slowly dying while homeless or in prison for being homeless.
How likely are you actually going to get fired for not showing up one day during a hurricane?
I if the entire staff just didn't show up that one day they're probably not all going to get fired.
In hindsight, your job is probably secure now that they are short staffed (which is fucking disgusting).
If flood waters are entering your place of business you're not going to have a job tomorrow.