Nov 11: The Yocona Rescue and the Kaprun Tunnel Fire

Host 1 Welcome to This Day in Disasters, Shipwrecks and Survival. On this day, November 11th, well we're looking at how survival often hinges on split second decisions when a perfectly routine day suddenly turns catastrophic.

Host 2 Right yeah you wake up expecting you know a normal day and suddenly it's life or death.

Host 2 death.

Host 1 Exactly. And we've got a really fascinating stack of sources for this deep dive we're looking at historical weather data official accident reports and some incredible first-hand survival accounts. so our mission today is to sift through these and figure out why our natural instincts and the very systems we trust to keep us safe sometimes completely betray us

Host 2 yeah it's that wild mix of luck instinct and infrastructure that really makes or breaks you like you know you go off for a normal afternoon of duck hunting or skiing and within hours everything goes wrong

Host 1 right so let's start with that duck hunting scenario and this is back in 1940 in the upper Midwest it was Armistice Day and the morning was well it was deceptively mild

Host 2 super mild yeah

Host 1 yeah

Host 2 unusually warm

Host 1 yeah so hunters head out to the Mississippi River marshes dressed in just like light shirts and jackets because they trusted the forecast which only called for colder weather and maybe a few fluries

Host 2 but then this massive storm just slams into them rain turns to sleet and then driving snow

Host 1 and we're talking 50 mile an hour winds whipping up huge waves and the temperatures just plummeted to single digits it's you know it's like checking your phone's weather app to plan your day completely unaware that the data simply stopped updating after sunset you assume you're safe because the system says so

Host 2 that analogy is spot on because trusting a faulty system is exactly what caused this disaster I mean the Chicago Weather Bureau was forecasting for that entire region but they simply weren't staffed overnight

Host 1 Wait, really? No one was there?

Host 2 No one. While everyone slept, the instruments were actually picking up this rapidly deepening storm, deepening storm, but nobody was there to interpret the data or, you know, sound the alarm.

Host 1 Oh, wow. So by the time the hunters realized the danger, they were already completely trapped. Which brings up the survival accounts from our stack. I was reading about two teenagers, Dick Bice and Laverne Reber.

Host 2 Yeah, they were stranded on separate islands on Lake Onalaska in Wisconsin.

Host 1 Right. And they actually survived but only because Bice's father did something completely desperate. He shot a padlock off a skiff just so he could row out to reach them in the middle of this blizzard.

Host 2 In the conditions he rode into were just surreal. Raymond Bice, the father, later described a detail that really haunts you. He said, and I quote, I've wondered how moving water could freeze, but I saw waves four feet high congeal like jello.

Host 1 congeal like jello.

Host 2 That's terrifying.

Host 1 It is.

Host 2 And tragically, between 146 and 154 people died in that storm, including 49 in Minnesota alone.

Host 1 Which, I mean, makes complete sense as to why it forced a major change. Looking at the timeline, this seems to be the exact moment weather forecasting had to become a 24-7 operation.

Host 2 Exactly. And the Twin Cities office actually started issuing its own regional forecasts so they wouldn't have those massive blind spots anymore. The system failed, so they rebuilt the system.

Host 1 Right.

Host 2 but you know sometimes the failure isn't a lack of information sometimes the modern infrastructure we build to protect us ends up masking these deadly man-made flaws

and

Host 1 and manipulating our natural instincts against us which perfectly connects to the accident reports from Austria in the year 2000. It's shortly after 9 am and a funicular train so basically a cable pulled railway that goes up a steep cliff is packed with skiers.

Host 2 Right. And it abruptly stops about 600 meters inside a steep three kilometer mountain tunnel.

Host 1 Which is awful on its own.

Host 2 Yeah. Well, it stopped because a fire broke out in the empty conductor's cab at the lower end of the train. Investigators discovered a shockingly mundane cause. It was a fan heater one that wasn't even designed to be used in a moving vehicle and it had ignited leaking hydraulic oil

Host 1 and the infrastructure actively worked against the passengers the power failed the doors wouldn't open and people literally had to use their ski poles to smash the windows just to escape the cars

Host 2 but once they were out in the tunnel their instincts took over if you see a fire below you your natural human instinct is to climb up and away from it

Host 1 right which sounds logical

Host 2 but that instinct combined with the physics of the tunnel proved catastrophic

Host 1 yeah because you have to understand how fire behaves in a steep confined tube hot air rises that three kilometer shaft essentially acted like a giant flue creating this massive updraft it just sucked the smoke and the toxic gases straight up the mountain at incredible speed

Host 2 exactly the chimney effect so by climbing up to escape those 155 victims from eight different countries were actually climbing directly into the path of the smoke

Host 1 Oh, man. And only 12 people survived.

Host 2 Right. And they did so by making a choice that goes against every fiber of human survival instinct. They went down they moved past the intense heat of the fire to reach the fresh air at the bottom of the tunnel.

Host 1 I read the quote from one of those survivors in the report. It was a German passenger who realized what was happening and he shouted to the people around him we must go down trust me.

Host 2 and those who followed him lived. But when investigators looked into the infrastructure failures I mean the list was grim there were zero smoke detectors.

Host 1 Wow.

Host 2 The fire extinguishers were out of passengers reach and there was no tunnel intercom to tell people what to do the funicular never reopened they just replaced it with a gondola.

Host 1 It really makes you question when to trust the system and when to trust yourself. So before we wrap up, a quick look at a few also on this day facts from our historical data in 1855, a strong earthquake and massive subsequent fire struck Edo, which is now Tokyo, with estimated deaths ranging from 7,000 to 10,000.

Host 2 That is just massive.

Host 1 Yeah. And in 1977, a freight train carrying dynamite blew up at Erie Station in South Korea, killing 59 people and injuring over 1,000.

Host 2 those are such stark reminders of how quickly a normal day can shatter.

Host 2 But thinking back to the tunnel fire, I want to leave you with this thought. in a sudden disaster following your most basic human instinct like climbing upward to get away from danger can sometimes be the deadliest trap of all next time you're in an enclosed space ask yourself would your instincts save you or lead you into the smoke

Host 1 thanks for tuning in see you back here tomorrow