The president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazónbegan the week this Monday by suggesting that the Military Emergency Unit (UME) did not provide all possible help in the first hours of the DANA that on Tuesday of last week devastated part of the province of Valencia and accusing the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation if there is lowered its “alert” levels up to three times“, first, and after a informative silence of several hours over the bed of the Poyo ravine, which shortly after would overflow, flooding towns such as Paiportaone of the black spots of the tragic floods. In a give and take of versions, the Ministry of Ecological Transition has denied with a detailed list of the different communications and notifications sent to the Consell and the Civil Protection authorities and even with a “verbal notification” at a meeting of the coordination center in which the Valencian Government had assured that it was not “alerted” that the flow had once again grown significantly.
The Consell and the Ministry of Ecological Transition – on which the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) against which Mazón’s criticism was directed – exchanged during the afternoon of this Monday information and versions in which the first wanted to record that had no information about the rising flow in the Poyo ravine – which overflowed, flooding towns such as Paiporta, Massanassa or Alfarfar – and the second, that yes he had it.
In reality, this supposed lack of notification about the rising flow was the second review from Mazón to the CHJ on that fateful day. The first, which he stated in the morning, was that the organization had reduced the alert level that it communicated to the Emergency Coordination Center, still in the hands of its Government, on up to three occasions. According to what the Valencian president said in an interview earlier in the morning, “deactivated the hydrological alerts three times last Tuesday.
Through the Ministry, the CHJ did not take long to come forward with these accusations through a statement in which it explained that it “it does not have among its powers the issuance of public alerts due to the risk of floods and floods” and that its role is limited to provide data on the amount of rain and level of the channels. With it, the competent authorities – in this case, the Center for Coordination of Emergències of the Generalitat – have the role of alerting the population.
As explained in a first statement by the CHJ, The Generalitat gave the hydrological alert on Tuesday at 12:30after receiving his first email, which, as the Consell also reflected in its later version, at 11:06 a.m. he already reported a flood up to 264 cubic meters per second in the Poyo ravine, hours after around seven in the morning the AEMET would have activated the red alert in Valencia.
With this information, the Generalitar activated an alert in which “the citizens of the danger of approaching banks and ravines” which, according to both the Confederation and the Consellwas not deactivated over the following hours. According to the interpretation that underlies their conflicting explanations, for the Consell this information – which the CHJ maintains that it did continue to provide – was key, while for the Confederation it was insignificant in terms of an alarm that had been activated since noon.
Alert and drop in flow
What they both maintain that did happen throughout Tuesday morning is a progressive decrease in the flow of the Poyo rambla. They do not agree, however, in the interpretation of this circumstance.
As reported by the Ministry and endorsed by the Consell, at 1:20 p.m.the CHJ sends a first email to the Valencian Government to report a first decrease of the flow, at 120 m3/s, which would continue to go down up to 55.8 m3/s, as reported at 2:35 p.m., and to 28.70 m3/s at 3:50 p.m.
According to the first statement from the Ministry, the “communications” with the Consell regarding the state of the water flow that comes down the Poyo ravine remain here, before detecting again a sudden increase from 5 p.m. which led to it reaching the same level at 5:30 p.m. that in the morning had led the Consell to activate an alert that had not been deactivated since then. The critical moment, says the CHJ, is recorded at 6:55 p.m., when the flow multiplies almost tenfold, up to 2,283 m3/s. “At that moment, the force of the water, which had been reflecting for two hours before, ends up dragging down the measurement systems”, explained the Ministry in this first account of events.
Mazón denounces lack of data; the CHJ claims that he gave them
This version, which sought to refute Mazón’s accusation that the CHJ had downgraded three times an alert that the organization assures that it is not within its competence to issue, subsequently served to support another accusation by the Valencian president, that between 4:13 p.m. – when it was informed of the last drop in the flow to 28.7 m3/s – until 6:43 p.m. – when it had grown to more than 2,000 m3/s -, the Confederation “did not send any communication” to the Emergency Coordination Center despite “sharp increase” of the amount of water that came down the Poyo ravine.
“The entity was two and a half hours without communicating any warning”, The Consell reproached in a note in which it accepted the notifications and previous hours that the CHJ had reported but in which it denounced an informative silence during the most intense flood of the flow that after 6:30 p.m. would overwhelm the measurement systems. It was the prelude to the most critical hours, starting at 7 p.m., when towns like Paiporta were completely flooded. According to this version, from 5 p.m. there were no more communications until 6:43 p.m., when “a flow of 1,686 m3/s with an upward trend and a very rapid flood” was reported.
In the midst of this ‘information silence’, the Consell even reported that at 5 p.m. a meeting was held meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (CECOPI) of Valencia, which was also attended by the president of the Confederation, Miguel Polo Cebellán, who would not have commented that the flow was beginning to rise again.
“At no time is there any warning of the sudden rise of the flow of the Rambla del Poyo nor of the especially dangerous consequences that have occurred since 5 p.m.”, denounces the Consell, citing the previous statement from the CHJ and alluding to a meeting that was still in progress when the last one arrived at 6:43 p.m. email from the CHJ that the flood already exceeded 1,600 m3/s. “When this email arrives at 6:43 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, the CECOPI meeting is taking place,” in which “CHJ representatives do not give any warning of the risk that exists on the Rambla del Poyo”, reproaches Consell.
In its latest cross-communication on this issue, the Ministry totally denies this point by assuring that at that meeting there was a “verbal notification of the general increase in flows, especially in the Magro River and the Júcar River.” Asked about this “verbal notification”, Consell sources refused to give further explanations and limited themselves to referring to their previous note, in which it was reported that in that meeting there were no comments on the matter.
Likewise, in this last note, the Ministry further detail your communications on the rising flow of the ravine, both via e-mail to the Consell as through “notifications“, an element that the department of Teresa Ribera He refused to explain how it differs from the “communications” that he himself reported on the morning of Tuesday, October 29 and with which the Consell was informed.
In addition to the hydrological information that was “automatically” available and updated throughout the day on its website, the CHJ explained that “redundantly notifies civil protection authorities from a flow rate of 150 m3/s.” “At different times, the Confederation notified the civil protection authorities of the evolution of the ravine’s flows through emails,” he said.
According to the latest CHJ note, the “Notifications” continued, although in the following hour without flow data. At 5:26 p.m. with “zero declaration and notification to the General Directorate of Water of the Generalitat with the Dam Emergency Plan. At 5:52 p.m., to notify the authorities of “the declaration of scenario 1.” At 6:05 p.m., to notify “the declaration of scenario 2”, until at 6:43 p.m. the stories coincide again and the CHJ “communicates” to the civil protection authorities of a flow in the Poyo de Ravine. 1,686 m3/s, prior to the report at 6:55 p.m. of the “destruction of the gauging station due to the force of the water with a figure of 2,282 m3/s.
When the CHJ launched this last communication with the last measurement that was possible to make with its systems in the Poyo ravine, there was little left to the most critical half hour and sudden, between 7 and 7:30 p.m., which the deputy mayor of Paiporta described in television statements a few days ago, Vincent Ciscar. It also occurred an hour before the phones of the Valencians will thunder with the 112 alert that launched the Consell at eight in the afternoon, 12 hours after the alert was declared after the first communication from the CHJ about the growth of the flow of the tragic Poyo ravine.
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