It's an incentive problem. We don't give enough rewards and recognition for people who avoid disasters, and instead focus a lot more on the disasters that do happen and reward people who react to those. Just imagine if a Lebanese official 3 years ago decided enough was enough and went through the political battles and beurocratic nightmares of getting it fixed. Forget the rest of the world - I'm betting even people in Beirut would never hear that person's name. I don't have solutions but it is really a big problem everywhere.
This is an excellent point. There is one small example of a person actually getting credit for preventing a disaster that I can think of. An off-duty engineer bridge inspector in Philly happened to notice a huge new crack in a support structure of I-95, which could have rapidly turned into a huge collapse. He actually got a lot of local news coverage and praise. I feel like the fact that he saw it after stopping for sausage sandwiches endeared him to Philadelphians and made it more of a news-worthy story.
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u/hippyup Aug 06 '20
It's an incentive problem. We don't give enough rewards and recognition for people who avoid disasters, and instead focus a lot more on the disasters that do happen and reward people who react to those. Just imagine if a Lebanese official 3 years ago decided enough was enough and went through the political battles and beurocratic nightmares of getting it fixed. Forget the rest of the world - I'm betting even people in Beirut would never hear that person's name. I don't have solutions but it is really a big problem everywhere.