Monday Morning Crisis Quarterback

Five trains between France and England broke down under the English Channel on Saturday, trapping about 2,000 passengers for up to 16 hours.  Whether this sounds like a particularly bad situation or just a travel mishap to you probably depends on your familiarity with the "Chunnel" trains and/or whether you are at all claustrophobic.  I myself try very hard not to think about it when I'm taking a tunnel under a large body of water, because I know that if I do I will freak out.  I think 16 hours would give me a little bit too much time to think about the water above me.

The trip from Paris to London (or vice versa) usually takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes.  No one gets on one of those trains with the idea that they will need food, water, pillows, blankets or significant amounts of medicine.  No one plans to spend the night.  Making matters worse, the trains apparently were carrying large numbers of children coming back from Disneyland Paris.  There was no power on the trains and hence no temperature controls -- some stories report temperatures of 104 degrees Farhenheit while others report that passengers were very cold.  The toilet facilities on the trains are not designed to accomodate this many people for this long, and they started to overflow.  It was dark, there was no water, and people started to get sick.

If you read the accounts of this event given by passengers when they finally got off the train, there is one theme that runs through all of them.  The lack of communication from Eurostar, the company that operates the train, and from train and rescue staff, left a lot of people very upset:

There was no communication at all.
They kept changing their story, so we didn't know what to believe.
We’d been sat trapped in a train for four hours and no one told us what was going on.
The driver locked himself in the ­engine room and we were knocking on the door asking what was going on – you could just hear him inside, crying. Passengers were getting very angry.
All we were told on the intercom was to ‘inhale less and keep seated’.
Someone came round and told us to stop breathing heavily because there wasn’t enough oxygen for everyone.
Staff just didn't seem to be telling people what was happening.
Staff are pleasant but have no idea.
It was an utterly disgraceful service and the lack of communication was unforgiveable.
It beggars belief in terms of the lack of organisation, incompetence and lack of information on the part of Eurostar.
The lack of communication caused people to become a lot more distressed than necessary,
We weren't ever told a huge amount of what was going on, the information was so vague.
Throughout this entire ordeal there was almost no information, no customer care and no help or advice.
Communication was the main problem, there were lots of confusing messages.
There was very, very poor communication from the staff.

We know this is very upsetting.  We are doing everything we can to get you out of here.  Right now, however, we do not know how long that is going to take.  We apologize, and we will let you know when we have more information.