Yeah, because you are the only person on the planet who has been on a big ship. So which is it, if they were 10 stories up they would probably notice the list but if they were not high enough up they would probably notice the water around their ankles?
There is a very large difference between screaming "The Ship is Sinking" in a high-pitched voice full of panic and explaining that there has been an accident and people should calmly return to their rooms, collect their life jackets, and muster at their life boats. History is full of examples of calm, matter-of-fact directions during an emergency. The crash-landing in the Hudson and the landing in Sioux City jump to mind.
According to people ON THE SHIP, this is not what happened. Feel free to read a first-hand account from someone on Cruise Critic
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1548951. If you would care to reply in that thread that the person obviously does not know what they are talking about because they do not have your level of training, experience, and expertise, feel free.
Seems Costa has a slightly less rosy estimation of the Captain's performance:
http://www.costacruises.co.uk/B2C/GB/Info/concordia_statement.htm (see fourth paragraph).
As for the Captain being the last one off the ship, according to the Italian Prosecutor, under Italian law the Captain is supposed to be the last one off the ship. If you have some citation to disprove this, I'd be interested in seeing it, as I suspect would the Italian Prosecutor.
According to first-hand reports, the Captain sailed the ship for upwards of TWO HOURS after striking the rocks before alerting authorities and ordering the evacuation. During those two hours, the lifeboats would most likely have worked fine as the ship was not yet listing so dangerously as to impede their function.
First, lifeboat drills are for both crew and passengers. Second, lifeboat drills are not useless. If people at least once have gone to their muster stations then they have a far clearer idea where they are then if they have not been to them. At our office we do shelter-in-place and fire drills at least twice a year. I can assure you that I, and the vast majority of people in my building, know where we are supposed to go and what we are supposed to do.
If you would like another example, check out
http://news.yahoo.com/a-family-remembers--hero-of-9-11-gave-life-to-save-thousands.html, which recounts how doing evacuation drills in the past helped save the lives of thousands on 9/11/01.
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