“…These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and undereducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters. People in low-lying areas get the floods, people in shanties get the hurricanes and tornadoes. I’m a college professor. Did you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods? We live in a neat and pleasant town near a college with a quaint name. These things don’t happen in places like Blacksmith.”
The above quotation from the beginning of chapter 21 tells about how (wealthy) people tend to think about disasters when it comes to them. At this point in the novel it is quite certain that a toxic event has occurred and that people should be prepared for whatever safety steps need to be made. Babette is even trying to convince Jack about this fact, but as his “speech” reflects, he simply couldn’t realize that it could happen to his family. Because of his status he feels untouchable in a way, sealed up from all the trouble that may come. Once again he relies on “the box”. As he’s saying “TV floods”, it gives the feeling that those floods never even happened in real life, just on the screen, so how could it possibly get them? And if there was no such occasion to be seen on TV when not the poor got hurt, it cannot happen! Especially not to them. Not right here. Not in Blacksmith, as if the neat little town, or the quaint name of the college, or simply his wisdom could save them in any way from catastrophes. Instead of making the urgent preparations for a possible evacuation, Jack locks up on the thoughts of being safe, out of reach from the harm just as long as they don’t receive the concrete call for the evac.
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