James B. Meigs: "The Trust Deficit"

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   On January 13, 2012, the cruise ship Costa Concordia struck a submerged rock off the coast of Italy. The sea poured through a 160-foot gash below the waterline, flooding nearly half the ship’s watertight compartments. The captain, hoping he could have the ship towed into port, delayed notifying the coast guard. Instead of directing passengers to lifeboats, the crew assured them that all was normal. “We have solved the problems we had and invite everyone to return to their cabins,” one crewmember told passengers assembled at a muster station. The ship’s leadership seemed more focused on preventing panic than on the safety of the passengers. By the time everyone was ordered to abandon ship, the vessel was close to capsizing. In the end, 32 lives were lost.
   In retrospect, the behavior of the captain and crew of the Costa Concordia appears stunningly dishonest and reckless—and it was. But it was also surprisingly typical of people in authority during disasters. In case after case, we see leaders—from ship crews to local police to federal officials—who seem more concerned about potentially unruly behavior by ordinary citizens than about the crisis at hand. In reality, most civilians show impressive calm and resilience in emergencies. Nonetheless, authorities find it hard to shake their fear that any big disruption will turn the public into a panicked, or even criminal, mob. In response, they often try to limit or spin information, clamp down on public movement, and step up measures against anticipated lawbreaking. [my emphasis]
   It’s understandable that officials want civilians to stay put and out of trouble during disasters. That’s usually good advice—but not always. People on the upper floors of the World Trade Center were told to “shelter in place”—standard procedure at the time—after planes struck the towers on 9/11. The only survivors from those floors were those who defied the instructions. In 2014, hundreds of South Korean high school students obediently followed orders to stay below decks while the ocean-going ferry MV Sewol took on water and sank, killing more than half of the 476 passengers and crew on board. Authorities also frequently mobilize to prevent anticipated spasms of lawbreaking. After the Alaska earthquake of 1964, officials in Anchorage temporarily halted searching for survivors in order to defend downtown stores from a nonexistent army of looters.
   Whether authorities face an immediate crisis, such as an earthquake, or a slower-moving calamity like the Covid-19 pandemic, their responses generally fit the pattern. In the early minutes—or days, or weeks—of a crisis, it’s hard for everyone to accept that the disaster is actually happening or to imagine how much worse it could get. People in positions of responsibility usually see their first job as reassuring the public and tamping down panic. In the U.S., officials at all levels of government used similar language as the threat of the novel coronavirus loomed.