As already said those with no social, family or property ties were among the first to begin relief work. But many of these started early simply because they were present where need arose. Many indeed of the uninjured folk at a distance seemed unable to realize the terribleness of the immediate need in the stricken area. In fact, owing to the collapse of communication they did not for an appreciable time discover that there was an area more stricken than their own, and devoted themselves to cleaning up glass and the like. But within a quarter of an hour a hospital ship had sent ashore two landing parties with surgeons and emergency kits. With almost equal dispatch the passengers of an incoming train—the railroad terminal at the time being in the north end of the city—were on hand, and were among the earliest first-aid workers. One, a Montreal man, was known individually to have rendered first aid to at least a half hundred of the wounded.
It was early afternoon, perhaps five hours after the catastrophe, when a semblance of coöperative action in rescue work began. Previous to this the work had been done in a rapid and random fashion, a single ruin being dug through a second or even a third time. Then came the recognition of the utility of association.[91] Thereafter the searchers became parties each of which was detailed to go over a definite area. When a particular section had been covered it was so recorded. This process considerably expedited the work in hand. Meanwhile relief was organized in other important directions.
The vital place of communication in society was recognized at once. It is a major influence in association, and upon it in disaster depends the immediacy as well as the adequacy of relief. Connections had been cut by the explosion and the outside world could only wait and wonder. How little real information filtered through is shown by the fact that at Truro, only sixty-two miles distant, the announcement was made three hours after the explosion that the death roll would not bear more than fifty names. Nevertheless within an hour after the explosion a telegraph company had a single line established, and with news of the disaster, communities everywhere took up the rôle of the Samaritan.
While the great hegira was in progress another leader, a railroad official, drove rapidly out the Bedford Road and commandeered the first unbroken wire to Moncton. Thereafter all that the government railroad equipment could do was at the community's service. Meanwhile the dislocated railroad yards were being combed for a live engine and coaches in commission. A hospital train was put together and in less than four hours after the explosion a large number of injured people were being transported to Truro.
Even before the rushing of the wounded to the hospitals a few began to realize the great human needs which would soon be manifest among the concourse of thousands who waited in helpless suspense upon the Common and the hill. Here they were en masse, a typical social aggregation, responding to the primitive, gregarious instinct of the herd. “Like sheep they had flocked together too bewildered for consecutive thought.”[92] Yet here ministrations of one sort or another came into spontaneous operation. Soon the military began raising white tents upon the field. One after another they rose, presenting the appearance of an huge encampment. The idea spread by imitation,[93] the repetition of a model,—“the imitative response of many minds to the suggestive invention of one.” One or two here and one or two there began to prepare the big church halls and other roomy institutional buildings for occupancy. Hastily the windows were patched up, the glass swept out, and no sooner had the danger of a second explosion passed, and the rumor of a possible roof reached the homeless, than they began to repair thither. At first each improvised shelter became a miniature clothing and food depot as well as a habitation. Then the idea spread of taking the refugees into such private homes as had fared less badly. Imitation is the foundation of custom. It became the thing to do. The thing to do is social pressure. It may be unwilled and unintended but it is inexorable. It worked effectively upon all who had an unused room. Many sheltered upwards of a dozen for weeks; some, more.
In the homes and shelters association of the like-minded soon came about through consciousness of kind. At first it was a very general consciousness which seemed to draw all together into a fellowship of suffering as victims of a common calamity. There was neither male nor female, just nor unjust, bond nor free. Men, women and little children lay side by side in the large sleeping rooms and “shared each other's woes,” for “the consciousness of kind allays fear and engenders comradeship.”[94] Then followed requests for changes of location in the dormitories, and for changes of seats at the dining tables. As various shelters sprang up, the religious element appeared. Applications came for transfers from Roman Catholic institutions to Protestant stations and vice versa. Even the politically congenial were only too ready to segregate when occasion offered.
Discussion and agreement must precede all wise concerted volition. There must be “common discussion of common action.”[95] Propositions must be “put forth” and talked over. There must be a “meeting of minds” and a “show of hands,” and decisions made. There had been no preparedness. The city possessed not even a paper organization for such a contingency as a sudden disaster; so that during the most precious hours citizens and civic officials had to consult and map out a program as best the circumstances allowed. It was late afternoon on the day of the disaster when a tentative plan had been formulated in the City Hall. The newly formed committees could do but little until the following dawn.
Men at best are largely creatures of circumstance. Innumerable causes, small and great, conspire to incite social action. But in catastrophe the control of circumstantial pressure[96] becomes almost sovereign in extent. The conditions it brings about, while often delaying measures of individual relief, account very largely for the rapidity of organization. While they limit they also provoke effort. The common danger constrains great numbers to “overlook many differences, to minimize many of their antagonisms and to combine their efforts.” At Halifax the pressure of indescribable suffering precipitated the medical and hospital arrangements which were the earliest forms of communal service. But it was the meteorological conditions which commanded the most prompt attention to the consideration of shelter and clothing. The months appeared to have lost station and February to have come out of season. The following table gives the weather record for the seven days which followed the catastrophe.[97] It is the record of a succession of snow, wind, cold and blizzard.
In consequence of otherwise unendurable conditions, the most rapid repairs were made to all habitable houses or those possible of being made so. The same was true of public buildings, hospitals, factories and warehouses. Moreover the same explanation accounts for the exodus of many who sought for shelter to the countryside nearby; and the many more who accepted the invitation of, and entrained for various Nova Scotian towns which became veritable “cities of refuge” to hundreds. The climate[98] decided the question of reconstruction in favor of temporary structures; for it was a time of year when prompt rebuilding was out of the question. Climatic conditions also seriously delayed the arrival of relief supplies, allowed but scanty provision for many, kept some from the depots of relief, or from surgical aid; and others standing in line in the bitter cold. It also added seriously to the sanitation and shelter problem. But it speeded and spurred the workers to prevent the maximum of exposure and neglect. It called imperatively for the most effective system, and many of the workable methods were hit upon under the stress of storm. An illustration of this may be found in the adoption of many food depots instead of one central station. Regional influence thus “fixes the possibilities of organization and collective effectiveness.”[99] The sociologist must study maps of lands and plans of cities. The location of the food stations at Halifax was a matter of topography as were the later administration districts. The city is widely spread out. It has fifty more miles of street than a city of similar population in a neighboring province. Six depots were established for the public distribution of supplies,[100] situated so as to touch the entire needy population most effectively, and to equalize the groups to some degree. So too, in the matter of dressing stations, accessibility was a deciding factor. But even this system had to be supplemented. Bread vans were driven hither and thither and when halted in the center of a street were usually immediately surrounded. Thus social reorganization in catastrophe witnesses to an urgency resident no less in space than in time and reëmphasizes the importance placed upon the physical factors in sociology.