Evacuation on foot

If walking to safety hasn't been given enough consideration in emergency planning, it isn't for want of evidence. Yes, walking was the main evacuation method for lower Manhattan on 9/11, but it had previously become the Manhattan worker's standby through transit strikes and blackouts in previous decades. Where do you think the practice of wearing athletic shoes with business dress for the trip to the office came from? (Dress shoes to be put on upon arrival). In fact, one might argue that a city like New York is an ongoing low-level disaster -- ongoing weekend construction disruptions to the subways being but one case in point -- which is why having a pair of good walking shoes comes in handy day to day.

Personally, I've never looked at shoes quite the same way after reading Primo Levi's accounts of his time in Auschwitz and wanderings upon release. In that purgatory, shoes were a matter of life and death, and had to be guarded accordingly. Yet how many of those taken to the camps thought to pack, of all things, shoes and socks? Preparing for the worst, start with the simplest.

Posted by David on October 18, 2006 9:24 AM