Over the past day or two I've talked to a number of people connected to the official efforts of dealing with the Carmel fire catastrophe.They are unanimous in telling that the state's response has largely been effective and smooth. As I explained in the previous post, this is not about the tragic death of 42 people (Ahuva Tomer, the chief of the Haifa police, died from her burns this morning); rather, it's about the ability to evacuate large numbers of people, feed them, send them back home as soon as possible, and deal with the aftermath and the large damages caused by the fire. The lessons of 2006 seem to have been learned, and the responding agencies mostly have their act together.
I can't link to such a story however, since so far as I can see, no-one is telling it. State agencies doing their job well? That's not a story for respectable media outlets.
Most Haaretz coverage I've seen seems to say the opposite, that how can Israel expect to go to war with Iran and absorb the retaliation if its homeland response can't deal with a forest fire. I wonder if we can get some aerial footage to see just how much land was burned over these three days. It's a very short lived fire, by American standards.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. But get this: the Palestinians have up to date fire-fighting equipment and Israel doesn't. I mean Israel is helping them to have the best fire service in the world while its own is deficient! Someone explain to me why Israel hasn't gotten around to taking care of the people who risk their lives to protect the lives and property of the people of Israel yet. Its inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteNorman
ReplyDeletethe Palestinians got the latest in state of the art
that's to be expected and I can't see how it could have been helped
can you imagine what would have happened, if you used by perfectly operational stuff had been dumped on them?
Once the decision had been taken that the best way to fight Hamas was to create "heaven" elsewhere choice was not an option any longer.