What Would You Do?

Let’s be transported to a different place and time, ok?  Its May 7, 1902, and you are living in the cultural center of the Caribbean.  St. Pierre, Martinique – the Paris of the Caribbean.  People come from far and wide to attend plays and the opera, to enjoy the best restaurants and cafes, and purchase the finest wares.   Your stately home is built into the hillside with a stunning view of the sea surrounded by limitless varieties of fruits and flowers.  Unfortunately, there is heightened political unrest, with the surging socialist party looking to wrest control from the incumbent right during the on-going election. 

Over the past weeks, the scientists are growing increasingly alarmed about the escalating activity within Mt. Pelee, the volcano that forms the picturesque hillside.  The scientists are imploring the citizens and politicians to take immediate action; however, the politicians are reluctant to heed their advice and mandate evacuation with the risk of adversely affecting the election and their political fate.   People stay put.   The city is getting overrun with yellow ants and large black centipedes, as they scramble down the hillside - reminiscent of the Egyptian plagues of the bible.  People stay.  Next come the snakes – deadly pit vipers.  People stay put.

Finally, with Mt. Pelée spewing clouds and lava, the scientists deliver the news – this is your last chance!  Leave now or you will die.  The politicians remain ambivalent. 

What would YOU do?

A.     Leave

B.     Stay

C.      Hem-n-Haw (hesitate, be indecisive) and eventually leave

Per theguardian.com:

Finally, at 8AM on 8 May 1902, Mount Pelée blew its top, sending a massive cloud of incandescent gas hurtling down its flanks.  Travelling at more than 100mph.  Three minutes later, the “Paris of the West Indies’ lay in ruins, its 30,000 inhabitants suffocated and burnt.  Only one person survived…the sole occupant of the city’s dungeon.  (The ships that hesitated and finally decided to sail out of the harbor were showered with) pumice and ash, with the crew dead or dying.

Unfortunately, this is a true story.  The devastated city, a past gem of the Caribbean, remain.  Its an eerie site.  You can see the dungeon and read the story about its sole survivor who wisely placed his urine-soaked garments in the door threshold and in the window to block the entrance of the gas, steam, glowing dust, ash, and pumice.  Gross and imaginative at the same time!

I would say C -- hem-n-haw indecisively and eventually leave.  I would be immobilized by the warring political positions and their attenuating of the scientist’s warnings.   I believe I would have left early enough to escape the deadly cloud but not early enough to escape without chronic illness caused by inhaling the toxic cloud.  I am trying to live boldly and be ok alienating people but for me its easier said than done.

So – again – what would you have done?  Leave, stay or hem-n-haw?