The management of the DANA catastrophe in the hours before the flood caused by the overflowing of the Poyo ravine casts more and more doubts as the details of everything that happened in the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat become known. Valenciana on Tuesday, October 29. Several town councils have confirmed to elDiario.es that they did not receive any Emergency notice from the Generalitat about the flooding of the rambla, which at 5:30 p.m. was carrying twice as much water as the Ebro river, the largest in Spain. Furthermore, that same afternoon at 6:30 p.m., the general director of the Valencian Security and Response Agency called the municipalities downstream of the Forata dam to a meeting that ultimately did not take place. At 6:45 p.m., the Minister of Justice, Salomé Pradas, informed the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, that the Magro River reservoir was about to overflow. This information never reached the municipalities of the Ribera Baixa that could have suffered a real swamp.
The big question is why the population was not notified until 8:12 p.m., when a Civil Protection alert message was sent to mobile phones asking citizens to stay in their homes and stay away from rivers and ravines at a time when thousands of citizens were already trapped in parking lots, basements, work centers or roads. As this newspaper has been reporting, one of the keys was the poor capacity to react and make decisions throughout the management of the crisis. The Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) in charge of dealing with extreme cases of emergencies convened at 5:00 p.m., when the State Meteorological Agency raised the risk level for Dana from orange to red nine and a half hours earlier, specifically to 7:36 a.m.
In addition, the measurement services of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation provided data on the level of the river channels. Consequently, before the first flood of the Poyo ravine that occurred around 12:20 p.m., the Emergency Coordination Center issued the hydrological alert: “Notice of increased flow in the Poyo ravine is received from the Confederation, with a record of 264 cubic meters per second at the Riba-Roja del Turia capacity. The hydrological alert is activated in the riverside municipalities.” The “advice to the population” that appears in this notice reads: “Do not approach the banks of rivers and ravines that may be active.”
Although the flow level in the Poyo ravine subsequently dropped from 1:20 p.m., at no time did the Valencian Community Emergencies deactivate the alerts. Simply, information was given about the evolution of the flow.
The CHJ, present at Cecopi, conveyed information that at 6:43 p.m. 1,686 cubic meters per second were reached and at 6:55 p.m. the force of the water drags the sensors and measurement systems. That riverbed was already carrying 2,282 cubic meters per second, so it experienced a rise of 2,000 cubic meters per second, at six in the afternoon, which is four times the normal flow of the Ebro.
From this entire situation, the mayors of the towns bordering the ravine had practically no information from Emergencies that would allow them to react in any way to protect the population. While the mayors of Aldaia, Guillermo Luján, and Sedaví, José Cabanes, assure elDiario.es that they did not receive any type of Emergency notice during the entire day of October 29, the mayor of Catarroja, Lorena Silvent (PSPV), reveals who only received the 12:20 p.m. hydrological alert via email and SMS with a very generic message: “The rest of the day we did not receive any type of communication about the situation of the ravine, although we have already established controls and communications with Chiva to see the situation. At 5:30 p.m. it had one meter of water and at 6:30 p.m. it was already overflowing. In half an hour he was on the Camí Real. Formally, no one from 112 gave us any notice of cubic meters or how the situation was. In the last legislature, when there was an alert, Emergencies called us to telematic meetings with the affected populations.”
The mayor of Paiporta, Maribel Albalat, although she has not been able to confirm whether she received the first hydrological alert from Emergencies about the situation in the ravine, she has guaranteed that the rest of the day she did not receive any type of information.
The most striking situation was the one that occurred in Algemesí, a town affected in this case by the crisis of the Forata reservoir and the flooding of the Magro river. The City Council assures on its social networks that “at no time has it received information, updates or monitoring of the flow of the river or the Forata reservoir, for this reason it has not been possible to inform citizens of their evolution.” The former mayor, Marta Trenzano (PSPV), who wanted to show her support for the current mayor José Javier Sanchis (PP) in everything related to the management of the crisis, was amazed this Tuesday at the call she received from the Generalitat’s Emergencies on October 30, one day after the disaster: “They called me about a problem in Copal (Algemesí cooperative) as a result of the floods, thinking that I was the mayor, when I stopped being mayor after the “last May 2023 elections.”
In statements to Spanish Television, the first mayor Sanchis commented that “it is not a question of finding those responsible, this has been a calamity, the rain cannot be controlled and the river overflowing could not have been avoided, but here no one warned us about it.” that water was going to be released from the Forata reservoir and that the flows were going to increase, no one told us.” Even so, he assured that the City Council tried to alert the population days before that “heavy rains” were coming and that he received a call on Tuesday the 29th at noon saying that they were paying attention to the river, that they were going to meet and that when it was over they would meet again. call: “This is the time I am waiting for that call and it was from the Government delegation.” The powers to give notices of this type, however, are the Emergencies of the Generalitat.
This way of proceeding at the Generalitat Emergency Center contrasts with the model of the Botánico Government: “In the event of any emergency situation, the former regional secretary, José María Ángel, called us and convened virtual meetings to analyze the situation and agree on measures,” say Trenzano and Silvent.
This newspaper has contacted the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat to find out what specific information and by what means was transferred to the affected municipalities, without having obtained a response.
#Emergencies #left #city #councils #stranded #critical #meeting #inform #risk #floods
