Cyclone Boris didn’t just hit Romania. It swept through and flooded Austria, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Republic of Moldova, causing damages and casualties. Out of the 19 deaths counted so far in the storm toll, 7 are from Romania.
This is happening even though the most affected areas in Galați county have been hit twice before and are already on the risk map. It is common sense that such an imminent danger should have required serious defense measures, as it is clear that they were lacking. Why, it’s not very hard to understand.
The land of political appointees
In November 2020, Recorder made a major revelation about clientelism in the institution called Apele Române: in Mureș, "13 PNL members with no expertise in the field were appointed as water management directors" only during the Orban government. And this was not an exception.
Several months later, Recorder returned with a new investigation, this time from Moldova, showing how politically appointed directors were firing competent people and hiring others "who don't even know how to measure the flow rate of a river. Recently, a young woman who used to be a waitress at a bar in Iași was hired in the department responsible for flood defense. This is happening while the ABA Prut-Bârlad department oversees several counties in Moldova, which are periodically affected by floods."
Among these counties is Galați. These political appointees and their incompetent lackeys/clients should have prevented the disaster in Galați.
But even the local authorities, elected by the people who have now lost relatives, homes, and properties, did nothing. "I believe that only God can tell us if something is happening or not. How would I know what happens overnight or during the day?" said the mayor of Slobozia Conachi, one of the hardest-hit localities. Elected mayor in 2016, re-elected in 2020 and 2024, in an area that had been flooded in 2013.
The mayors didn't even enforce the law to ensure that people secure their vulnerable homes against water.
PAID data shows that only 20% of the damaged or destroyed houses had PAD insurance. We asked the Slobozia Conachi City Hall how many notifications they sent last year and this year to those without mandatory insurance and how many fines were issued for non-compliance with the law.
Since it's an election year, money will be poured from the budget and from the EU to "bandage" the wounds, but the next disaster will find us just as unprepared as long as the institutions are led by the same political appointees, selected based on the same criteria, and people remain just as disinterested in their own fate.
Nobody humiliates the Police and the Gendarmerie
On Tuesday, an unprecedented incident took place at the Parliament. A man set fire, after a quarrel, to a shop inside the Romanian Parliament building, located in the visitor area. Most likely, the man has a mental issue not only for the act itself, but also for carrying a bottle of gasoline with him.
Mentally unstable individuals exist everywhere in the world, of course, but the incident reveals dangerous issues regarding the preparedness and reaction of the authorities in Romania. In other words, if instead of a disturbed person, there had been someone trained and with a precise agenda, the disaster would have been inevitable.
The attack took place in an area where access doesn't involve any checks on people and luggage. In other words, we understand that in the lobby of the Chamber of Deputies, before security screening, one can enter with any kind of weapons and even bombs. We are talking about a significant location, a tourist attraction always full of tourists and employees who can easily become victims.
It's a great concern that the Palace of Parliament is surrounded by fences for security reasons. What security? Only where the parliamentarians reside and the SPP guards? And after setting the fire, why wasn't the man immediately subdued by the gendarmes supporting the walls. The staff put out the fire, and when the "authorities" came to their senses, the man was already gone.
In December 2021 a drunk Irishman jumped the fence of the Palace of Parliament, broke a window, entered the building, and was caught by the SPP wandering around the offices. It seems that no one understood anything back then, because that man could have been something completely different than just a confused reveler.
Moreover, it's astonishing how the Bucharest Police, not some station in the middle of nowhere, equipped with the best technical means, in a Bucharest filled with cameras, couldn't locate a dazed man, already identified, for over 10 hours.
Under the direct coordination of the first incompetent of the Bucharest Police, Berechet, the pupil of the first incompetent of the national Police and Gendarmerie, Despescu, the law enforcement institutions were made a laughingstock by a nobody.
Sirens, flashing lights, deployments of forces as if for Carlos the Jackal. They retraced the fugitive's path for about 200 meters, amazing! They profiled him. After knowing his identity? How insightful! They asked for the population's help. They found him in his hotel room, after half a day of stopping cars, opening trunks, and lighting up the city.
Should we be surprised that under the same enlightened coordination, the murderer from Arad hasn't been caught to this day, and a pensioner with a knife stabbed two people while the police were guarding the door of the building? If a professional of the same kind planned the attack on Parliament, what would have happened?
This is how a country destroyed by all the incompetents placed in key positions looks like, who have appointed other incompetents under their command. But let's not forget, at least during an election year, that all this happens possibly with the complicity of our vote, whether gentle or hysterical, but rarely rational and based on correct criteria.