Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron (Full Episode) | SPECIAL" video.

  1. Regarding the test of how long it takes to launch a lifeboat, shown beginning about 20 minutes in: Something I learned when I was a fire warden in an 18 story building: When we moved in, we scheduled a fire drill, and told all the workers in the building what day and time the drill would be. Came the day and we got everyone out of the building in about 24 minutes. We fire wardens (one per floor plus a captain) held a post-mortem meeting and worked out what went well and where we stuffed up. A few weeks later we did another pre-announced drill. It worked well, and we got everyone out within 8 minutes. A very good achievement. A few months later we decided to have a proper drill - that is, we didn't tell anyone there would be a drill. We arranged with the city fire brigade that they would send a couple of fire trucks with sirens going, and they gave us a smoke bomb, to add a bit of realism. The drill was a shambles. Most people suspected it was another drill, but many thought it was real - they thought the building was actually on fire. There was a panic, difficult to control. It took 18 minutes to get everyone out, and some we couldn't account for - they just cleared out. The moral is: You can do tests, you can do drills. But if it is a real emergency, things will go wrong, people won't follow orders, and it will take longer. So yes, on the night on Titanic they did very well. even though not all boats were full.
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