THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE DESIGNED FOR SECURITY THEATER, NOT FOR SAFETY: Modern Airports Offer No Easy Way Out for Panicking Crowds. “False reports of shooters at two of the busiest U.S. airports—one in New York City and one in Los Angeles—left many passengers swept along by surging crowds of panicked people searching for the closest exits. The chaos was perhaps all too predictable, because computer simulations suggest that many major airports are terribly designed for emergency evacuations.” Penning a bunch of helpless people together in a place that’s hard to escape is poor policy.