This is how the Civil Protection ES-Alert protocol works: whose responsibility is it to send alerts to the population in emergency areas? What happened to the Generalitat notice?

A week has passed since the beginning of one of the largest natural disasters that Spanish society has faced, and there are still thousands of missing people and the death toll has not ended either. In the same way that the effects and destruction continue to be seen in the streets of the most affected areas, with special attention in Valencia, but also Castilla La Mancha and Andalusia.

Although civil society has organized and the response has been massive with volunteers and donations of food, cleaning materials, clothing and more, the political reaction to this tragedy has not been what was expected, mainly because instead of bringing everyone together the shoulder, what is being done most is pointing at the opponent to blame him.

How the Civil Protection ES-Alert protocol works

One of the most debated topics is around who is responsible for not being warned in sufficient time or in advance of the magnitude of the danger, which caused hundreds of people to continue with their day as if it were a simple storm, going to work, going out into the street, taking the car or not preparing to face the floods that have finally occurred.

The ES-Alert system is supposed to be precisely for these things, since it is an alert that causes all mobile phones within range of the antennas to beep for a few minutes to warn of a natural danger. This is possible, because the sending is done by radio signal, which makes its reception immediate and reaches all users because It is not affected by possible network saturation.

This protocol is relatively new, and it has not been necessary to use it in Spain, except when strong storms came to Madrid during the late summer of 2023, where President Isabel Díaz Ayuso activated the alarm as manager of the Community of Madrid.

Whose responsibility is it to activate this ES-Alert protocol?

Without a doubt one of the reasons why fingers are being pointed is because of the responsibilities of not having warned before it was too late, and many are saying that the first mistake was the late activation of this protocol, which although it is for civil protection , said institution does not have the power to activate it.

The confusion over the powers arises because of the current president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, who during an intervention at COPE stated that the Hydrographic Confederation “dependent on the ministry of Teresa Ribera”, eliminated the warnings for the floods in the basins of the rivers. Mazón assured that it was the responsibility of those authorities dedicated to civil protection to send the alerts.

But the truth is that this is not the case, and as they have responded to the president of the Generalitat from the Júcar Hydrological Conference (CHJ) “The management body of the Júcar hydrographic basin It does not have among its powers the issuance of public alerts due to the risk of floods and floods.. “The powers of alerting the population correspond to the emergency services coordinated by the autonomous communities.”

In other words, Who has to send this notice is neither the Central Government, nor the AEMET, nor the Hydrological Conference, nor any other body other than the autonomous government, in this case the PP, chaired by Mazón, because the alert was level twoif it reaches three, it becomes a national alert and all powers (both management and issuing alerts) would become the Government’s.

Why has there been this mess with the Generalitat?

The truth is that looking at the facts, it is not very clear why the warnings arrived so late and when they had already occurred. serious flooding, irreversible damage and even deaths. It all starts on October 23, on Wednesday of the previous week, when the AEMET, state-controlled body sends the first warning of heavy rain, and during the following days it continues to alert, even sending a special notice on Sunday the 27th informing that Tuesday the 29th will be the peak day.

In fact, the same organism alerts on Tuesday morning (the day of the catastrophe) of extreme danger due to torrential rains in Valencia informing you that you should not travel except in cases of extreme necessity. At 11:45 on the same day, the Emergency Coordination Center, the competent regional body, issues the first warning with information from the CHJ to the municipalities of the Magro River basin.

About the 12:20, the same organization warns citizens “of the danger of approaching banks and ravines.” Less than an hour later, and although it is true that the flow level in the Poyo ravine dropped, Mazón himself published from his Twitter account “According to the forecast, the storm is moving towards the Serranía de Cuenca, so It is expected that around 6:00 p.m. its intensity will decrease throughout the rest of the Valencian Community.“. Tweet that was deleted a few hours lateras elDiario.es points out, when the first effects of this tragedy began to be seen.

The truth is that this tweet is not the only unfortunate thing about that day, since From 4:13 p.m. to 6:43 p.m. on that day, no other regional alert is issued again.despite the fact that the flows had risen sharply again. Mazón defends by saying that his Emergency service “did not receive any email, any call, or any communication of any kind from the CHJ alerting of this sharp increase.

The CHJ responds to these accusations by reiterating that It is the regional government that “centralizes all the information from different official organizations and it is with the cross-analysis of all the data that decisions are made.” (…) No other organization, neither AEMET, nor the Hydrographic Confederations have all the information and, therefore, are not competent to declare alerts”.

Finally, It was not until 8:12 p.m. that the ES-Alert alarm was issued, when houses and entire neighborhoods had been destroyed. Whatever they say, The competence and therefore responsibility for the management of the notices lies with the government of Mazón, which did not correctly evaluate the alerts issued during the previous days and hours by other organizations.

WhatsAppTwitterLinkedinBeloud