When it comes to a disaster like Katrina or 9/11, it's often better to question authorities especially when your gut tells you to.
The release of the tapes of 911 calls from September 11 is heart-breaking because
No more than 2 of the 130 callers were told to leave, the tapes reveal, even though unequivocal orders to evacuate the trade center had been given by fire chiefs and police commanders moments after the first plane struck. The city had no procedure for field commanders to share information with the 911 system, a flaw identified by the 9/11 Commission that city officials say has since been fixed.
I wrote in Good Sense and Preparation that
You have to depend on your own good sense and preparation to survive if something terrible happens, a terrorist attack, a fire, or in what seems increasingly likely next year or the next two or three, a pandemic of avian flu.
You have to depend on your own good sense and preparation to survive because the federal government, state and local governments are not prepared as they should be and never will be.
This used to be commonly accepted.
Civil engineers who studied the collapse of the World Trade Center towers said some 2500 people saved their lives because they disobeyed authorities who told them to stay put and instead engaged in "reasoned flight". They didn't flee in a panic but stopped to help the injured and assist the disabled. They knew more than the authorities because they had better access to what was happening than the authorities did.