The fear of losing everything
I’m sure many of you have talked these days about the tragedy in Valencia, where a building caught fire and left many families homeless. Have you thought about what you would do if the same thing happened to you? Have you felt compassion for those affected and at the same time fear of being left with nothing? This is a normal reaction to such a dramatic event, but it can also generate a certain obsession with security that, in some cases, can be excessive. A conservative media outlet called for a general inspection of the entire housing stock and linked the fire to the housing crisis of the 2000s.
Information as a tool
To be able to act judiciously and responsibly, what we need is to be well informed. Carlos Márquez offers us two relevant facts today: the majority of Catalan buildings do not pass the technical inspection when they do and more than 1,500 Catalan blocks were made with the same system as the one in Valencia which caused the chimney effect in the spread of the fire This data must serve us to make rational decisions and apply the appropriate control mechanisms, nothing more and nothing less.
The risk society and its response
Ulrich Beck defined the risk society as one where accidents are the result of negligence and the automatic solution is to create protection systems to prevent them. It doesn’t matter the price. It doesn’t matter the time. The important thing is to be calm thinking that it won’t happen again. This attitude can be as wrong as resignation. But it can also be as illusory as thinking that, if we avoid all possible mistakes, we will be eternal. This only benefits insurance companies or preventive reporting professionals. You need to be careful and, of course, investigate imprudence, negligence and deception. If there was one in Valencia, we need to know. But knowing that zero risk does not exist or if it does exist we cannot afford it. Neither negligent nor arrogant.