The image went around all of Skopje in a few minutes: the huge 60-meter flagpole with the Macedonian flag, which for years stood as a landmark by „East Gate,” lies snapped and bent in the middle of the roundabout, next to the „Continental” hotel. The hurricane wind that struck the city yesterday afternoon didn't spare it either.

The flagpole wasn't the only victim in that part of the city. The same storm uprooted trees, ripped off roofs and caused chaos across traffic. At the airport, the wind made the roof leak, so passengers had to wade through large puddles that formed in the middle of the hall. A scene hard to forget - and one that raises uncomfortable questions about maintenance.

Mayor Orce Đorđievski announced that the crisis headquarters is mobilized and that city services will work through the night on cleanup. That's the correct, expected response once the damage has already been done. But the fallen flagpole raises a different question too.

A structure 60 meters high, set at one of the busiest spots in the city, snapped like a matchstick. Are structures like these even designed for the kind of winds that, as the weather service also warns, are becoming ever more frequent? It's one thing for the wind to tear off leaves and branches; it's quite another for a tall metal pole to fall in the middle of a roundabout full of vehicles. This time there were no injuries - but luck isn't a strategy for urban planning. When the next hurricane blows, will we again just hope that what falls won't fall on someone?