Some things are just bad breaks. Some people for example could not believe Ron Brown's plane unintentionally crashed in the mountains near Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. I believe it. I've seen first hand what the Alpine Express as it is called by some in the Adriatic Sea can do. We had a storm his is while anchored outside Dubrovnik. Even with our radar capabilities on the carrier we had very limited advanced warning of a storm that slammed us and caused us to drag anchor.
Yes, the world is a dangerous place. I remember the story of that tech guy, driving with his family somewhere out in the Pacific northwest. I believe it was Thanksgiving weekend and they got caught in a blizzard. He went to get help leaving his wife, toddler, and newborn behind.
I think it was his tech friends who realized they were missing and used some kind of cell phone triangulation to find them. My impression was that the authorities would have done nothing without extreme prodding from their friends. (Not the first time I’ve heard that.)
Sadly the man died but the wife and kids survived.
I remember hearing Curtis Sliwa talking about it and he said, as you did, that people had a hard time believing this could happen in the modern day. But that he had been out there at that time of year and you could turn a bend in the road and go from a beautiful, sunny day to a raging storm.
Eh, this is why I’ve always liked the concrete jungle best (even though I live in the suburbs now), the dangers are mostly human, which is at least something I understand.