> If we instead learned about this during a real disaster people could have died

This is universally true. The question is how bad could it have been, and in which cases would it have been the worst?

> We’re lucky it’s not a disaster

This is always true. Again, the question is how lucky?

We have an opportunity to count blocked emergency vehicles and calculate a hypothetical body count. This lets us characterize the damage. But it also permits constraining hysteria.