Surviving Disaster

Amanda Ripley's piece about surviving disaster was both informative and important [June 23]. But her recounting of the fatal fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, which I covered as a correspondent for ABC News, omitted two key lessons. One: when someone yells "Fire!" (or anything equally alarming), people must err on the side of caution. And two: exit doors must open outward! Most of the corpses at the Beverly Hills were lumped up against the exits. The people who reached the doors first couldn't open them because they opened inward, and when more people pressed up behind them, the doors...

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