José Miguel Basset is a firefighter and the only person in the photo whose uniform is real. He is the head of the Valencia Provincial Firefighters Consortium, which is the force of the province’s body, where all the damage has occurred. He is also the person in charge of the technical operation, the so-called “emergency director” according to the protocols, and who says what is needed to alleviate the situation, what technical and human means are more or less urgent and where that help goes. Just as the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, is the political director, Basset has been the technical director.
“He is very good at what he does,” say people who know him. But its specialty is large forest fires, which are the most common natural disasters in recent years in the Valencian Community. The body he directs is especially recognized for the release of bodies, something that is very necessary in this catastrophe.
Since Tuesday, he has had to face a mountain of technical decisions: where to deploy the army, order and manage means that were offered to him from other autonomous communities, helicopters, where to put the vats or extractor trucks. Also foresee future situations such as the need to install portable toilets, coordinate with mayors… In the first days of the emergency, either it has not happened or it has not happened in a minimally agile or effective way. The result, flooded populations managing themselves.
Basset, who had a leading role in the first hours of the tragedy, but has now faded into the background, has not directed operations of this magnitude, like no one else in Spain and certainly in Europe, but neither have any important cold drops. In fact, in the 2019 DANA – in which six people died and there was damage valued at billions, in addition to destroyed infrastructure – he was not in charge, because it affected the south of Alicante (in addition to Murcia, which had its own emergency center). Then, it was ‘the turn’ of the Fire Chief of that province, Alicante, who is not known to have attended the coordination meetings despite his previous experience, nor has he incorporated international experts who have been able to manage catastrophic floods. Sources from the presidency of the Generalitat have not answered anything specific about whether this advice is being requested and they say that they do not know.
Basset is also the one who has decided where the resources of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) and the Army have gone, especially in the first days. When the Government of Spain was requested for the first time, on Tuesday at noon, it was this emergency director who considered that they should go to Utiel, where the first problems and floods occurred in the morning. Once the tragedy that engulfed more than 200 lives in l’Horta Sud happened, on Tuesday night, resources from the UME were requested again and this technician located them in Chiva and Paiporta/Picanya. The rest of the towns were left only with firefighters. In the two days after the flood there was looting and robberies, in addition to the fact that the neighbors were short of supplies, without electricity, water, or food. The presence of the UME was minimal in three municipalities and non-existent in the rest.
On Friday after the tragedy, the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, asked him to put the Army in all the places where there has been flooding, not just in some points, as reflected in the minutes published by elDiario.es, something that, indeed, From that day on it ended up happening.
In this time, incomprehensible things have happened, such as two helicopters sent by the Andalusian Government that ended up turning around because no one ordered them to do anything. The forest firefighters, employees of the Generalitat Valenciana itself, publicly denounced that they wanted to help and could not because they were not activated. The Bilbao firefighters were outraged because they would not let them go. The volunteers summoned in the City of Arts and Sciences have not been organized effectively and many had to turn back.
No control structure
Even a general from the UME, Fernando Carrillo, said live on the Telediario that there were no more soldiers because if you bring them en masse you have to give them a task and organize them, suggesting that this was not happening: “Emergencies that arrive suddenly have its phases and times, the accumulation of troops, if there is no organized control structure or logistical support, can cause undesired effects.” Three days had passed since the catastrophe and, apparently, there was still no one. Meanwhile, the Government of Spain reiterated its offers. When they asked for help, it would be sent to them in the fastest way.
Although some sources defended the importance of creating specific work groups (infrastructure, health, education…), we had to wait until Saturday night, when Carlos Mazón reported that they were organizing them and for which he requested the incorporation of ministers. The first days of the emergency there was chaos that, since Saturday, has been repaired with a more coral Cecopi, with more experts and more distributed by areas. But it has not yet been reflected in the disaster zone, where hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting to cover basic needs.
Mazón also announced that Saturday night an important addition to the meetings: that of the Chief of the Defense Staff (Jemad), the highest authority of the Armed Forces in the Ministry of Defense. With the current number of military personnel being incorporated, the sources close to the management consulted by elDiario.es point out that, although the official director of all logistics continues to be Basset, more collegial decisions are being made and the commanders are being listened to. military in all their proposals, so that they are effectively leading their own organization with the approval of the autonomous community, since they are much more trained for this type of situations than the emergency director.
In addition to the emergencies of the moment, Cecopi should serve to foresee situations and commission work within days and to specific experts: Will they need masks in the area? Should epidemiological surveillance be carried out in case diseases arise? Are portable chemical toilets needed so that there is no contamination from dirty water? Will citizen security problems arise? Are there shuttle buses so that those affected can get around? According to the result, there has been no foresight and, if there has been, it has not translated into visible effects. For example, the first public health recommendations for residents and volunteers were issued on November 2, four days after thousands of people failed to take precautions. A statement from Cecopi has warned not to drink water in any municipality this Sunday, and it is not known by what means the population has been informed, in municipalities where sometimes there are not even municipal sides because all the waters have been flooded. municipal communication systems.
The state guide to emergency operations from the Ministry of the Interior makes the functions of the emergency director very clear. It can be supported by an “advisory committee”, or it can make the decision to create a Steering Committee “when the need to provide means and resources not available in its territorial area is foreseen” of which, for the moment, there is no news.
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