Gary Drescher wrote:
You're weaving an astounding fantasy here. There were people atop houses
throughout the flooded city, painting SOS messages on rooftops and waving
large white sheets that were plainly visible, but to no avail, because the
rescuers were not there. Moreover, 20,000 people had followed the
authorities' instructions to take shelter in a stadium (which they were then
forbidden to leave because of the rising flood waters) where they found
themselves trapped for days without food, water, or lights, with
temperatures in the upper 90s, immersed in raw sewage and surrounded by the
decaying corpses of people who had already died of dehydration. And you want
them to *light fires* to call attention to themselves?

No. This thread has digressed from the failure of individuals and
governments to make the right decisions in the face of impending
disaster to a treatise on survival skills. It has gotten way off topic.