San Diegans React: Beirut Explosion Hits Close To Home

Speaker 1: 00:00 Lebanese officials are still assessing the devastation caused by Tuesday's huge explosion in Beirut. The death toll now stands at more than 135 people with 5,000 injured and estimated 300,000 people have had their homes badly damaged or destroyed. And now lack adequate shelter. That tragedy has shocked the world, but has caused a deeper, more personal grief for people of Lebanese heritage. My guest Joseph's fire was born in Lebanon. He now lives in San Diego. He has many family members and friends in Lebanon, and one of his friends was killed in the Bay root explosion. Joseph's fire is also the president of the house of Lebanon in Balboa park and Joseph, welcome to the program. Thank you. And thank you for having me. How did you find out about the expense? Speaker 2: 00:49 So as you know, nowadays, we are working from home and I was sitting in my desk in my bedroom working and, um, my daughter came up to me with a, with her phone. She said that I just heard from my friend that there is a huge explosion in Beirut. And I said, Oh wow. Okay. So let's, let's take a look. And then I grabbed my phone, of course, and there was about maybe 10 texts and then WhatsApp text and, and that's how I heard about it. And then of course I stopped everything and then we're glued to the TV with all the social media and, um, and the bad news started to trickle in. And that's how I found out about it. Speaker 1: 01:30 Were you able to speak to people, you know, who survived the blast? Speaker 2: 01:35 Yes. We did speak to some of our friends in Beirut that survived the blast and, uh, and they were totally in shock totally in shock. They described it as if it was a nuclear bomb and they never ever experienced this as, as you know, Lebanon has gone through so many Wars and whatnot, and they've never seen anything like it before. Speaker 1: 01:58 How did you find out about your friend's death? Speaker 2: 02:00 Well, uh, so when we started to, when I started to communicate and receive these messages, asking questions, so at first they sent us a clip video of where his office was. And in that clip video, people were starting to search for, uh, injured and injured people. And then there was a lot of dust in the air and whatnot, as you can imagine. And then I heard his name, they said, we need to take nozzle to the hospital, he's bleeding. So that was the first that I heard about it. Then they kept telling us, giving us updates. No, he's doing fine. He's then indeed at the hospital. And then, you know, it didn't take more than 10, 15 minutes later. We heard also that he passed away. Speaker 1: 02:43 I'm so sorry for your loss. Speaker 2: 02:45 Oh, thank you. I'm so sorry for all the losses in Lebanon. I mean, because of the carelessness of the government, uh, this happened and, uh, there was no reason at all for these people to die or get injured or lose homes. Uh, it's, it's really a disaster down there. Speaker 1: 03:02 Let me ask you a question about that. The explosion was apparently caused by tons of amyl nitrate fertilizer that was stored unsafely for years at the port of Beirut and accusations have been made that mistakes like that are a trademark of the present Lebanese government. And sounds like you agree, Speaker 2: 03:21 Absolutely. This, this disasters falls squarely on the current government's shoulders. There is no excuse, no reasons, none whatsoever to say all while it's the manager's fault or, or whomever's fault, this port is monitored. And sir, and they have continuous surveillance by the government. What goes in and what goes out and they knew about it. And then some security forces down there. They reported it to the government three years ago. They said, look, we have this huge amount of explosive sphere that are stored in the, in the port. They don't belong here. What do we do about it? And they kept not talking about it. They just ignored it until this disaster happened. Speaker 1: 04:04 Lebanon was already in economic and political turmoil before this tragedy, from what you're hearing is the country prepared to recover from this destruction? Speaker 2: 04:14 Well, you know, um, back in, uh, October, 2019, um, you probably, you probably know that we had the revolution and the revolution started because of the corrupted careless, not being able to be taking and not able to take care of the business in Lebanon to run the country. So the people revolted, they were like enough is enough. I mean, just imagine Beirut, you hear a lot about it. What it does not have seven 24 electricity, garbage is piling in the streets. Water sometimes is on. Sometimes it's off all the social services. Sometimes they are provided. Sometimes they are not. So people were fed up and they went to the streets and about million million and a half people went into the streets, revolting against this government. Um, and of course the COVID-19 came in. Everything, you know, went down and now we have this disaster. So yes, Lebanon has been in turmoil and we did not need anything like this to happen. Speaker 2: 05:11 That kind of exasperate the situation. So, um, it is really a disaster. And I can tell you now that the community and San Diego is not just sad, they are angry. We are just angry. We need help. We need United nations. We need NATO. We need whomever to come in and then take over the country, send all these politicians home, not home, send them to jail because I am pretty sure I'm very confident that they're going to be, they're going to be found guilty for all the, all the mishaps that happened, you know, for the past three years in Lebanon. And, um, and we need help. We need help desperately now before yesterday. Speaker 1: 05:51 So about the fundraisers that you're organizing here in San Diego. So we have two fundraising Speaker 2: 05:58 Activities that are happening. One of them that I'm involved with, one of them is through the house of Lebanon. You can go to house of lebanon.org, and then you will see on our front page, a button where you can donate money and send to Lebanon. The other one, it's called a LPI charity on Facebook, a LPI charity on Facebook, you can go in and then you can also donate the money is going to NGOs down in Lebanon. They are distributing the monies to a number one families who have lost loved ones, um, to, to rebuild their homes and then three to pay for all the medical, uh, uh, treatment that they're receiving down there. Speaker 1: 06:40 I've been speaking with Joseph Speier, who is the president of the house of Lebanon in Balboa park. And Joseph, thank you very much for your time. Speaker 2: 06:48 It's my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out to me.