The survival instinct is trained. That institutions are prepared means that they can act automatically under clear protocols that experts have designed when there is time to think. We need authorities trained in processing information, making decisions and coordinating efforts
Natural disasters do not exist. Even something as unpredictable as an earthquake occurs in Japan and rarely has fatal consequences. It happens in Haiti and becomes a catastrophe, yes, but natural? The images that come from DANA in the province of Valencia are overwhelming not only because of what we see, but because of what we are able to imagine. We see dead people and survivors wandering in search of their loved ones, we hear the testimony of someone who was holding the hand of a neighbor who ended up being swept away by the water. We imagine the last anguishing minutes of a woman perched on a car.
DANA is a natural phenomenon; its consequences, no. The figure of at least 158 deaths is not attributable to the rain, but to a lack of foresight. When an entire year’s worth of water falls in a town in eight hours, we can attribute that torrential rain to the fury of nature (and only to a certain extent, since DANAs are more frequent and probable due to climate change), but we cannot emergency response.
Bertrand Russell wrote that civilization is the ability to foresee. The international press and governments are shocked, because we are a civilized country. But we have failed: we have not lived up to ourselves. There are people who have died because they did not go up to the upper floor of their house, or because they got on the road when they should not have done so. Prevention has failed and crisis management has failed. The fact that there is not even a record of missing people 48 hours later shows how unprepared we were. It’s amazing to write it: we were not prepared for a cold drop in Levante in the month of October.
If this catastrophe can have any meaning, it is to open our eyes to the reality of climate change: thinking about the lives we can save in the future will give meaning to the human losses of this tragedy. Resilience to climate change must stop being a slogan and become decisive public policies. Because they save lives.
Taking responsibility for the tragedy means rigorously analyzing what happened so that it does not happen again. Since ten in the morning on Tuesday the AEMET warned of an ominous forecast throughout the province of Valencia. There are numerous questions that continue to float in the mud. I am at least 14:
- Why weren’t the population alerted until eight in the afternoon?
- Why did the University of Valencia send people home at mid-morning, but factories, companies and shopping centers remained as if nothing had happened?
- Did workers know their rights in an emergency?
- Why were home delivery trucks driving through flooded roads?
- Were there clear protocols to restrict population movements?
- Why didn’t the Integrated Operational Coordination Center meet until five in the afternoon?
- What information induced the president of the Generalitat Valenciana to say that at six in the afternoon on Tuesday the worst of the storm would have left his Community?
- Did the closure of the Valencian Emergency Unit influence the delay in making vital decisions?
- Until the crisis in the Valencian government last July, it was Vox that ran Emergencies. Has this instability influenced the response of the regional administration?
- Do people know what a “red alert” means and how they should act?
- Is the population trained to act quickly in a context of torrential rain?
- Do drivers know when and how to get out of the car if the road is flooded?
- Are safe flood shelters identified and known?
- Do people who live in flood zones have knowledge for an emergency situation?
For decades, we were a country ravaged by terrorism: we were trained to protect ourselves from attacks. 20 years ago, in December 2003, there was a bomb warning at the Santiago Bernabéu. The game had not yet ended and the stadium was almost full, but in five minutes, under the direction of security forces, 70,000 people were evacuated. No one had to stop and think and everything happened quickly and orderly. There was no stampede, no panicked rush: everyone knew how to act.
The survival instinct is trained. That institutions are prepared means that they can act automatically under clear protocols that experts have designed when there is time to think. We need authorities trained in processing information, making decisions and coordinating efforts. And we need to educate citizens so that going upstairs is not a choice, but an instinct.
#DANA #flood #questions
