horrific elevator death leads to questions of blame and responsibility

During the stormy weather on Shabbos, the poor infrastructure in parts of Tel Aviv failed, as it does just about every year during the few days of heavy rains... the streets of some Tel Aviv neighborhoods resembled Venice more than Israel. People could be seen kayaking and boogie boarding down streets that were turned into rivers. Sadly, it generally also leads to some tragedy every year. This year, among the tragedies, was a particularly horrific one as a couple, both 28 years old, died in an elevator when they went down to the building parking lot, below ground level, to check on their car. The entire parking level was completely flooded and the elevator got stuck int he water and flooded. Both of them died in the elevator from hypothermia (initial reports said they drowned in the elevator, but it seems they died of hypothermia). Emergency services had been called but it took them way too long to get their, due to all the flooding and dangers and blocked roads everywhere else on the way.

Without laying blame anywhere, and without knowing all the facts, and according to news reports an investigation is now under way to determine where the failure was that caused this tragedy who who was responsible for whatever that failure was, I saw this news report that made me wonder.

In the first ten or so minutes they show some of the craziness around Tel Aviv, and what happened in the elevator. They also talk with the owner of the building, just a year old - the building, not the owner - and that is the part that makes me wonder....

take a look for yourself...

She seems awfully defensive, to me. Screaming wildly and blaming the mayor for the infrastructure failure and flooding. It seems to me like she is trying to deflect any liability from herself.

I get people are upset. Who isn't? Who wouldn't be? She seemed a little over the top, to me, and a bit crazed in her attack on the mayor.

Maybe the mayor is responsible. I don't know. Maybe the owner of the building is responsible, in part perhaps, as the report suggests the drains in the parking level were all blocked and that is being checked. Maybe the national government is responsible. I don't know. It cannot be easy to rip up the infrastructure of an "old" city like Tel Aviv and redo it. I don't know who is responsible, but the owner looks, to me, more concerned with deflecting blame away from herself.. Maybe only one of them is responsible, or maybe all of them are each partially responsible. Or maybe none of them are and this is simply what the insurance companies call "an act of God".

What do you think?

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