On the topic of flash floods esp. when traveling; I make a conscious effort to not park/stay anywhere liable to flash-flood, and that requires some situational awareness in the sense of at least knowing your surroundings and the area's geography/climate/seasonal weather patterns. We recently narrowly avoided getting caught in [0], and that was with us making a conscious effort to not spend too much time in any of the low-lying areas, not even for a day hike - we'd always park somewhere relatively high and simply avoided hiking any of the low regions. That storm happened just one day after we were there passing through that exact spot. The tourists staying at that popular hotel probably didn't think about how they're staying on the floor of an enormous desert valley in a monsoon-y time of year. By failing to prepare you're preparing to fail...
[0] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-05/unpreced...
I don't go to a hotel to be in my room. If I am traveling there is a reason to do so.
All in all I think this paranoid fear of hotels and travel is something specific to US. I've never had issues with security in a hotel or even given it a a thought. In normal world you don't need to worry about this kind of stuff.
My biggest worry in hotel rooms these days is how to rig the A/C to stay on while I'm out.
Heated blanket on the thermostat? Or do they have timed-shutoffs or door-key based systems that cuts off the electricity when you leave? What do you do then?
!=
"I don't have to worry about $PARTICULAR_DISASTER_SCENARIO because I'm generally organized and well-situated above a certain threshold: If you picked a random disaster scenario $x out of a hat, chances are pretty good that I'd already be equipped to handle it."
P.S. Not trying to "counter-argue", just sharing a different perspective.
Once you've actually successfully navigated any particular disaster scenario, you will try to avoid situations that look like they could contribute to a repeat. My wife once had a laptop stolen out of the trunk of a car; she is now hyperaware of where and how she parks and what is visible through the windows.
As they say, you should always check you can restore your backups.
https://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/356-as-a-former-sysadmin-i-al...
TL;DR: he got hired as a security officer for Morgan Stanley's WTC offices, and he made the employees regularly practice evacuations.
> Rescorla wanted the company out of the building because he continued to feel, as did Hill, that the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers.[17] He recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan office space, mentioning that labor costs were lower in New Jersey and that the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed because the company's lease at the World Trade Center would not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla's insistence, all employees (including senior executives) then practiced emergency evacuations every three months.[18]
> After Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, the company eventually occupied 22 floors in the South Tower and several floors in a building nearby. Rescorla's office was on the South Tower’s 44th floor.[4] Feeling that the authorities lost legitimacy after they failed to respond to his 1990 warnings, he concluded that employees of Morgan Stanley, which was the largest tenant in the World Trade Center, could not rely on first responders in an emergency and needed to empower themselves through surprise fire drills, in which he trained employees to meet in the hallway between stairwells and go down the stairs two by two to the 44th floor.[15] Rescorla's strict approach to these drills put him into conflict with some high-powered executives, who resented the interruption to their daily activities, but he nonetheless insisted that these rehearsals were necessary to train the employees in the event of an emergency. He timed employees with a stopwatch when they moved too slowly and lectured them on fire emergency basics.[15][18]
I don't really need to know the odds of each specific reason I might need to get outside to determine it's worth a short walk to the end of the hall to confirm I know which door leads to the stairs and where I end up outside once I go down them.
1. Know your egress routes
2. Be aware of your surroundings
3. Be ready to move
4. Have a communication plan
5. Know places to go in emergency (e.g. Consulate or group rally points)
6. If it doesn't feel right, leave.
Also, if you park a vehicle at the hotel try to avoid spots that would likely be blocked by fire engines.