As October 29 gets further away, more data and testimonies appear to clarify what failed and what did not on the day of DANA so that a historic storm became an unprecedented catastrophe in terms of loss of human life. So far, 222 people have died and three are missing. The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, once again said before the À Punt buses that we must look to the future, to reconstruction. In the opinion of the head of the Consell regarding his lies about his arrival at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center, “so much controversy is already absurd, reviewing all this type of things. I think we have already explained it sufficiently.” “All this is a bit tiring,” said Mazón, who insisted: “We have already given enough explanations, something that others have not done.” But there are still many answers to offer.
Among those unanswered questions are these two: why, if the Generalitat had its own river and wadi measurement equipment deployed, was it removed at 3 p.m.? Why was there talk of an information blackout if the instruments were available to be informed at the second of how much water could flow down the most dangerous ravines, including the already fateful Poyo?
This newspaper already reported exclusively that the Buñol team of the Generalitat forest firefighters was sent at 1 p.m. to measure the flow of the Poyo ravine near Chiva. After two hours there and measuring a scale of more than 80 centimeters and a second one a few centimeters smaller, the management of the Valencia Provincial Firefighters Consortium sent them to the base. But not to help in rescues or measure other places, but to wait there until they were sent home at 7:30 p.m. It was these firefighters who, on their own initiative, went out at night to help rescue people.
One of the members of the Buñol team who went to measure the Poyo ravine has spoken with elDiario.es and has denounced the fateful decision to order them to stop measuring the scale of the ravine. “The scale of the Poyo ravine at that height measures 2.5 meters. I had never seen so much water in that section,” explains this forest firefighter. At those times, between 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., the measurements gave around 80 centimeters, about 33% of its maximum capacity. The ravine is almost always dry and it has to rain a lot up the ravine to reach minimum levels. At 5 p.m., that same geographical depression was carrying four times the flow of the Ebro River. The bridge seen in the image was seriously damaged after the passage of the ravine.
This firefighter explains that the measurements were transmitted to the Provincial Firefighters Consortium of Valencia, who coordinates them, through the radio station, which is the communication instrument they use to avoid the lack of telephone signal. “When they sent us to measure the Poyo ravine, we took food because we thought we were going to spend the afternoon there. When they removed us at 3 p.m., we were surprised because the water scale was not normal,” explains this firefighter who took the measurements on October 29. For this key testimony, “if Emergencies (in this case the firefighters of the county council that coordinates them) had not removed us, we could have warned of the flood.” In that case, the Cecopi at 5 p.m. would have had information in real time and not only from the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) that the Generalitat now criticizes.
“At 7:30 p.m. they sent us home without any order, just like the day after DANA when no one gave us any instructions. We went to the A3 highway to rescue people on our own,” he laments about the coordination of the firefighters of the Provincial Council of Valencia, who are the ones who direct the firefighters of the Generalitat during the alerts. This firefighter explains that conversations between the measurement teams and the fire brigade are recorded. The same source explains that the meter in the Poyo ravine was in perfect condition because it is monitored twice a year so that the measuring poles are not lost or may offer erroneous data due to grass or reeds.
The Valencia Provincial Firefighters Consortium, specifically its chief José Luis Basset, was the one who coordinated all the response teams during the DANA day.
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