The Never-Ending Debate Over Who Deserves to Be Rescued
The Titan disaster raised a perennial question: How much should the government protect people who put themselves in harm’s way?
In 2017, as Hurricane Harvey came barreling toward Texas, Patrick Rios, the mayor of a coastal community called Rockport, had a morbid message for residents who might consider ignoring an evacuation order. “We’re suggesting if people are going to stay here, mark their arm with a Sharpie marker with their name and Social Security number,” Rios warned would-be holdouts. No first responders’ lives would be risked to help them, and should they die, the marking would help identify them.
Whether Rios’s description actually dissuaded residents from waiting out a hurricane at home is difficult to measure, but now it is a common refrain when hurricanes
