We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire. -Eric Hoffer

The frog in the boiling pot is exactly backwards. It is absolutely ideal for disasters to happen slowly. Because then they're usually not disasters at all.

A biologist at Harvard University said, "If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot—they don't sit still for you."

Here's an account Re: Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940):

"On November 7, high winds buffeted the area and the bridge swayed considerably. The first failure came at about 11 a.m., when concrete dropped from the road surface. Just minutes later, a 600-foot section of the bridge broke free. By this time, the bridge was being tossed back and forth wildly. At one time, the elevation of the sidewalk on one side of the bridge was 28 feet above that of the sidewalk on the other side."

The article says "just minutes later," but if the people in the condo in Florida had had "just minutes" of violent swaying we wouldn't have 150 dead people. We'd have maybe 5.

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words. –Edmund Burke