We witnessed few days ago a huge fire in Baabda that destroyed an entire forest just because the Fire Department wasn’t equipped properly and our firefighting helicopters couldn’t be used, and yesterday it rained for few hours and the roads got all jammed and flooded with water, and today I am reading that Lebanon had a tsunami drill in Byblos yesterday.
Of course we should be conducting tsunami drills in Lebanon and I am glad Byblos has taken this initiative but I don’t think a tsunami would hit the Byblos coast only and I am pretty sure the Civil Defense, the Lebanese Red Cross and the Lebanese Army won’t have enough units to perform such a drill along the coast. Moreover, our focus should be at the moment on fighting fires since summer is near.
In fact, I think municipalities located in the mountains should seriously consider investing money and employing people to monitor and guard the forests and quickly react to any fire that erupts.
I do think that drills are important and the fact it was carried 2 days before the fire and the storm is a pure coincidence as it must have been scheduled some time before.
I knew from my parents and old people that they used to be forest guards in the past in Lebanon. How and who decided to dismiss them by the time when the Lebanese population doubled and tripled ?
This is a clear indicator of the deterioration of the state as wise decisions, that developed countries make, are omitted in Lebanon.
Another sad story that I knew about lately is that of beirut trams. The tram was prosperous, open from 6:00 until 24:00 and serving main streets. The saddest part is that it was turned down in 1965, that is 8 years before the start of the civil war (so because of a purely illogical political decision), do give way for more cars … Really smart.