by bmb19 | Nov 20, 2025 | Uncategorized
Haytham runs a small grocery shop in Baabda. During Covid-19, his day started early as he opened his shop, cleaned the counter, and checked his phone to see who was sick today.
The street outside never really stopped. People passed through Baabda to go to Beirut, to work, to school, to hospitals and pharmacies. Every week, Haytham heard the same line: “My uncle got Covid.” “My neighbor tested positive.” “My coworker is now in isolation.”
For him, Covid-19 was not just news on TV. It was fewer workers, worried customers, and a quiet fear at home.
When we look at the data, Baabda has the highest number of recorded Covid-19 cases of all districts in Lebanon. It has more cases than Matn, and more than all the other districts on the chart.
This fits what people in Baabda felt every day. When one busy district has so many cases:
- Shops and offices lose staff because people keep getting sick.
- Families have to stay home, miss work, and take care of each other.
- Clinics and hospitals see more patients and more pressure.
Other districts had fewer cases and a lighter daily impact. So even though Covid-19 hit all of Lebanon, it did not hit every place in the same way.
This difference is important. If we treat all districts as if they are the same, we may plan in the wrong way.
However, if we know that places like Baabda had many more cases, we can prepare better for the next health crisis. For busy areas like Baabda, this could mean:
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More testing and vaccination points.
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Extra support for hospitals and clinics.
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Clear messages and reminders in places where many people pass and meet.
This story is not only about one district at the top of a list. It is about using simple data to see where life was hardest, and making sure that next time, these places get the help they need faster.
For people like Haytham, that could mean fewer worries, fewer sick calls, and a community that feels ready, not alone.
by bmb19 | Nov 16, 2025 | Team Project, Visualization
Living on two bills
Electricity is supposed to be invisible: you flip a switch and get light. In Lebanon, it’s something you plan your whole day around.
Most residents now live with two parallel systems in their heads: EDL hours and generator hours. You learn which appliances you’re allowed to use at 2 pm versus 2 am, when to rush a shower, when to switch off the AC because you’re scared of the next bill. Behind every meter, there’s a family trying to stretch one salary across food, rent, school, and an electricity bill that never really feels under control.
Situational Analysis — What people are living inside
On paper, almost every home in Lebanon is connected to electricity. Urban households report virtually no physical disconnection from the grid, and rural areas are close behind.
In reality, the public utility, EDL, only manages to cover around two-thirds of national demand; the rest is picked up by private diesel generators at much higher prices.
Tariffs on the public grid stayed frozen for decades while fuel costs and the lira’s collapse pushed the real cost of each kilowatt-hour far above what people are billed, leaving EDL dependent on large state subsidies and struggling to offer 24/7 power. Families respond the only way they can, by constantly switching between EDL and generators, trimming usage where possible, and sacrificing comfort during heat waves and cold snaps.
Almost Everyone Lives with a Generator
It is very rare in Lebanon to find a building that relies only on EDL. Across Beirut, Mount Lebanon, the North and the South, almost 90% of all residents now live in buildings that have a generator contract.
For a typical family, that doesn’t just mean backup power; it means a second bill, a second set of rules, and a constant low-level anxiety about fuel prices, ampere limits, and surprise increases.
Where you live and how you’re supplied decide your bill
Generator users pay the most, and some regions are hit harder than others. Private-generator buildings in Mount Lebanon show the highest monthly bills, while households relying only on EDL pay noticeably less for similar basic needs. There are tough choices to make: parents deciding whether to keep the heater on for one more hour, or students studying under dimmer lights to save a little this month.
Same consumption, very different bills
Actual bills are well above the simple baseline almost everywhere. Even when buildings use roughly the same amount of electricity, generator users sit higher on the chart than EDL users. Two families living in similar-sized apartments, using similar appliances, can end the month with completely different bills, just because one building relies more on diesel. The system doesn’t only charge you for how much you use; it charges you for how broken your supply chain is.
Old buildings and weak envelopes quietly punish people
Older, poorly insulated residential buildings come with the highest bills. Poor or average insulation traps heat and cold in all the wrong ways, forcing families to run AC units, space heaters, and dehumidifiers longer just to reach a basic level of comfort. Newer or better-insulated buildings show noticeably lower bills, but most of the housing stock doesn’t fall into the good category.
Energy storage (batteries) helps residents survive outages and shift some usage, but it only reduces the bill a little bit—it doesn’t fix leaky windows, thin walls, or a climate that’s getting more extreme. People are effectively paying a penalty for living in older buildings they rarely had the power to choose or upgrade.
Call for action
What we found is pretty clear: residents in Mount Lebanon are billed the highest for roughly the same comfort, but no region is really okay. Whether it’s Beirut, the North, the South, or Mount Lebanon, most households are dealing with the same mix of unstable EDL hours, heavy generator reliance, and buildings that leak heat and cool air. The patterns in the data all point to the same thing: your bill is shaped more by where you live and how your building is supplied than by how careful you are with turning things off.
So, here’s the ask. At home, focus on the wins you actually control. Run heavy loads in EDL hours, when possible, keep ACs and heaters serviced, and seal the obvious leaks around windows and doors. In your building, don’t carry it alone, coordinate with neighbors or the committee to push for clearer generator terms and small shared upgrades instead of random individual fixes. At a wider level, we should start by helping the people who are hurting the most: families in older, generator-dependent buildings in every region, with support to improve their homes and with fairer electricity prices. The data shows exactly who is paying the highest bills, so we can stop acting like everyone is affected in the same way.
