When a catastrophe occurs like the one we have seen in the Valencian Community, we all sympathize with the victims and those who suffer the uncertainty of having lost everything and, of course, we wonder about the management of what happened. It can’t be any other way. Any attention seems insufficient to us, because that is what marks a catastrophe: the needs for attention completely exceed the real possibilities of addressing them. The disproportion is brutal. Always.
Throughout my professional life prior to my performance in political representation positions, I have been able to study, disseminate and participate in the discipline of disaster management and response. There are many written texts and thoughtful analyzes of care in different catastrophic situations, but one constant is repeated: the next one will never be the same as the previous one. By definition they are “black swans.” That is why protocolizing, testing these protocols in simulations, knowing the other intervening bodies with whom we will have to act and training in disaster management is essential for the different professionals who work in this field. Precisely for this reason, I can proudly affirm that, as a public servant, I have been fortunate that my service, 061 of Galicia, has taken this area of knowledge into account.
One of the fundamental parts of disaster management is the so-called “debriefing”, which is an analysis and sharing report on the management of the incident retrospectively. From reading these reports, there is always one conclusion: despite great protocols or excellent professionals, mistakes are always made from which it is necessary to learn. This study also shows that the earlier the error in disaster management is, the more difficult it is to correct the response and correct its consequences. I don’t want to give past examples, but the specialists who read these lines know that even in examples of very good management, avoidable errors were made.
In this terrible natural disaster that is mainly devastating Valencia, we have seen how an initial error, the delay in transmitting the alert to the population, can further complicate the already complex and devastating emergency that is being faced. There will be time for that more detailed “debriefing” that can clarify the impact of this delay, but the truth is that the decision was made by the legitimate command of the management of the catastrophe, which in this case corresponds to the Generalitat Valenciana.
From the beginning of a disaster, it is essential that it is clear to responders who is in charge. In a major emergency, all actions must follow the principle of “unity of command”: each person or team must have a single line of communication and authority to avoid confusion. It is, therefore, essential to create solid chains of command in all links and in all bodies involved. Because this single command must also coordinate all those involved: civil protection, firefighters, public order forces, health workers.
Without a doubt, the initial error of the regional command questions its solvency, but not its legitimacy, which the law itself grants it. In those initial moments, and with a geographically delimited catastrophe, in this case the Valencia area, there are no reasons to think that the emergency has to jump from the autonomous command, which is the one that has the greatest capacity for recognition and understanding of the territory, in addition of the largest number of professionals in the area. This command has to receive the needs through its information systems and the bodies it coordinates and understand what is out of its reach to request help. But the work of that chain of command should not stop in the middle of a maelstrom of decision-making that cannot wait because it would make management even worse.
The management of a crisis should never stop and the command must know how to understand where the catastrophe is at in order to establish the different priorities and request the necessary external help. It is about moving from chaos, which in this case has been terrifying, to order progressively.
In my opinion, the debate generated about the possibility of changing command at critical moments and replacing a good part of the links in that chain of command with others or forcing one administration to give way to another at those moments makes no sense because such a decision It would have caused friction that would have led to delays and conflicts in decision-making and misgivings between administrations that must collaborate. The ideal thing in those moments is not a change of command. The sensible thing is to choose to enhance coordination and favor co-decision.
That an autonomous community asks for help from the State to manage a catastrophe like the one we are experiencing does not invalidate that administration from taking control, but it must be understood that this help is, by definition, modular. The head general of the UME, Francisco Javier Marcos, has explained it masterfully: “It is true that we did not intervene quickly because the weather did not prevent them and for a matter of order and discipline: we could not add chaos to a truly chaotic situation.” Any responder deployed to intervene in a disaster knows that they must be autonomous and not add difficulties to the already battered local structure.
In any case, we must wait for the evolution of disaster management, which seems to be beginning to straighten out after the massive deployment of resources and the essential improvement in the infrastructure situation, which allows for better logistics of assistance, to evaluate on an ongoing basis which administration should take charge of crisis management. The priority remains to complete the rescue activities that, without a doubt and out of absolute empathy with the desperation felt by the affected people, have been prolonged in an exasperating manner.
There will be time in the future to evaluate the command and its management, without a doubt society will be severe because the evidence in the form of data and chronologies will not be able to be refuted, but beyond that derived from political responsibilities what is obvious once What is more, is the unparalleled value of public services, that only public services save us, that science is what must lead the way and that denying climate change and not acting to adapt to the challenges it poses generates enormous damage for our society. . And, unfortunately, for our democracy.
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