When The State Is Absent

A year after Beirut’s devastating port blast, the government is AWOL— so the people have stepped in to rebuild

- By Lin Noueihed

After the Aug. 4, 2020, explosion at Beirut’s port, Mariana Wehbe found her city in ruins. The streets were covered in thick gray ash. Broken glass from shattered windows crunched underfoot. Doors were blown out. Cars were crushed. Dazed residents surveyed the devastation, wondering what had happened and how they might recover.

As news of the blast spread around the world, her Instagram account lit up, urgent WhatsApp messages poured in, and her phone started to ring nonstop. Friends and acquaintances were checking in, wanting news of Wehbe and her family and—more important—asking how they might help. “Initially I said, ‘Call the Red Cross,’ but they said, ‘No, we want to help you,’ ” Wehbe recalls, nodding at the concrete hulk of the port’s grain silos outside her window, still in ruins amid the twisted remains of warehouses. “I thought: What do people really need right now? Doors and windows.”