Priorities

Last Saturday evening, I was just about to finish my claypot chicken rice in City Mall when the fire alarm suddenly went off. The food court in City Mall is located on the second floor. There weren't many people there—I can only assume that many of them must have gone to some posh restaurants since it was Valentine's Day.

Anyway, in spite of the fire alarm, the people in that food court were surprisingly calm. All of us started walking towards the escalators. There was no panic whatsoever—no pushing, no shouting—all very calm. But once we reached the ground floor of the building, people were beginning to bottle-neck towards the main entrance. The escalators leading to the basement car park were sealed off. The security guards actually stood there and were adamant not to allow people from going down to the basement.

I was a little worried as my car was parked in the basement. Apparently the generator set on the basement level caught fire, thus causing thick smoke. I thought it wasn't anything serious, but I suppose the building management wasn't taking any chances.

The funny thing was that many people were trying to find ways to get down to the basement anyway to save their vehicles. The guards who blocked the escalators explained that they had strict instruction not to allow anyone pass through.

Then I saw an old couple trying to argue with the guards, saying that their car's in the basement. During the commotion, the guard mentioned something like they should give priority to their lives rather than their car. But the wife was not convinced. She wanted to save her car one way or another. And then suddenly she remembered that they'd left their shopping bags at the counter before entering Giant Supermarket. So she dragged her husband towards that counter. The husband refused, since they should be leaving the building rather than going back inside. It was quite an amusing scene, really.

Anyway, some of us—including me—sneaked in to the basement through the side staircase near the main entrance. In the confusion, no one guarded that particular access somehow. When I got to the basement, I was surprised to find that many other people were already there trying to escape with their cars. And so everyone got into a traffic jam.

And the beauty of it all was that these people actually drove up the ramps, and upon reaching the main entrance of the building, stopped to pick up passengers one by one and loading their groceries, hence causing further delays. Bear in mind that all this was in spite of the fire alarm.

In the end, I took 15 minutes to finally reach the main road. If there was an explosion or the fire had spread, many, many people would have died that night. As I was driving away from the building, I could still see many people lingering around the building—and therefore contributing to the traffic jam—just to see what would happen next.

It is strange that many people get their priorities all wrong during emergencies. They will try to save their belongings somehow even if they might lose their lives in the process.