Employees of 112, the telephone number that responds directly to emergencies in the Valencian Community, work in precarious conditions. With alternating shifts to operate 24 hours a day, with between 5 and 15 people in normal conditions and with 20% of staff on sick leave, this privatized service, under telemarketing agreement, manages all emergencies that arise independently. .
On October 29, the first day of Dana, while assisting the victims in the Eliana center, the workers saw how everything was overflowing: in the morning, they received dozens of warnings in the high areas, where it started raining very early. , the monitors marked the geolocation and the nature of the opinions, with a strong emphasis on Utiel or Chiva. The alerts multiplied over the hours and spread to other localities, notably to the municipalities crossed by the Poyo ravine – or Chiva ravine -, which reaches the Horta Sud and flows partly into the Albufera . At night, the map that monitors calls was full of warnings, with the entire province of Valencia under the label of “natural phenomenon” or “incident.” “The majority of requests were for rescues,” explains an operational worker during the worst hours of the storm. “Many people called on roofs, on fences, inside cars, in tunnels, elderly people in single-story houses with no exit…all with water up to their necks. In addition to gas explosions, fires. The water pressure dragged and could do anything,” he says. “The feeling is: We can’t do this,” says another employee who also answered the calls.
The service, explain several sources close to daily operations, was reinforced Tuesday morning and afternoon. A typical night shift might be around 7 or 8 people, a morning shift might be up to 14 people. On Tuesday, the service was boosted to more than twenty people, calling everyone who could be operational, but the flood of calls exceeded all expectations. ElDiario.es could not confirm with the General Directorate of Emergencies how many people were operational on Tuesday, although consulted sources assure that the room was full, with more than twenty: “It was extreme.”
Everyone who could answered the calls, they explain, but the scale of the tragedy caused the service to collapse, with long waiting times and people unable to contact 112. In one of the videos broadcast, employees of a Charter supermarket (the Consum franchise) in the town of Catarroja, water up to their knees, they desperately declare that they cannot notify the emergency services: “They will not recover it simply not, it looks like 112 doesn’t exist,” they exclaim. They managed to leave the supermarket by breaking a window with a fire extinguisher. This complaint was constant during the night of the disaster, with hundreds of messages on social networks from relatives or friends indicating where their acquaintances were so that someone could go and rescue them, because they could not contact them otherwise.
The workers confirm with anxiety the long waiting times: “The call entry system was working, the waiting time was long because hundreds, thousands of people who needed help, stuck at home, we called,” explains a worker, who emphasizes: “We gave absolutely everything.” “We always keep in mind that at each of these points there are one or more people trying not to die,” explains this emergency manager, present Tuesday evening, during Dana’s worst moment.
Many calls that 112 did not respond to due to the collapse were directed to other institutions, notably the Civil Guard, which also received more than a thousand calls that night from desperate people . In one of Cecopi’s minutes, published by elDiario.es, more than 75,000 calls are recorded until Thursday; 20,000 of them, estimates one worker, would be from Tuesday October 29. Tuesday’s operations say they saw more than 60 calls waiting as they responded as quickly as possible to a call to send troops.
On Tuesday, the service had coverage problems, explains a worker, who adds that this is in addition to a computer system that he considers deficient. During the worst hours of the emergency, the service had little coverage, which meant calls from those affected were not returned until late at night. “Communications have not allowed for external calls to be made,” says one employee, who explains that “each time a call is disconnected, we call back in case something has happened to the caller – during the communication -. On the night of the 29th, we were not able to redial the number until very late.
The workers, who prefer to remain anonymous, insist that early warning to the population would have saved lives. “The emergency technicians – the regional agency – are professionals, but the politicians were like headless chickens.” Some employees live in flood-affected areas and have seen their loved ones warning them that the streets “look like a river,” while they, in the room, continue to tend to and coordinate all emergencies. “At the beginning of the afternoon we received notices in Chiva,” explains an employee, who then saw how they began to descend into the Montserrat region.
“Two hours earlier, they could have given the evacuation order”
“We cannot prevent water from wreaking havoc, but lives can be saved by making decisions and these decisions are political,” adds the emergency manager, who concludes: “Two hours earlier, they could have given the order to evacuate the cities and they did not give it. the president of the Generalitat, who is the one who should have given it. The worker refers to a notice issued by the Security and Emergencies Agency, which reports to the regional secretary of Emergencies, Emilio Argüeso. On Tuesday at 6:10 p.m., this organization issued a warning due to the risk of rupture of the Forata dam (in Yátova, near Buñol). This opinion establishes the measures to be adopted in the municipalities, such as “preventive evacuations of the population, the prohibition and cessation of activities, cuts and preventive controls”. It also includes the recommendation of “notifications and preventive information to the population”.
In addition to the absence of warnings, everyone agrees to highlight the “little humanity” of those responsible for the Ilunión emergency service, given the psychological conditions in which they work. The company calls them “resources”, it monitors the time of each call, there are “pressures” for schedules, it analyzes the number of responses in a given period and the workers struggle with scheduling issues. basic like going to the toilet. or breathing after a particularly complex warning – for example suicide. Call response time is always analyzed, and if there are calls waiting to be answered, two conditions that determine whether “in stock” personnel are called back to work or not, with a mercantilist performance logic, such as machines. “Hearing the voices of despair is complicated, we are hardened, we are emergency professionals, but we are also human,” says the speaker. “We left our souls,” he says.
The workers consulted by elDiario.es commented with frustration on the “entourage” of the Civil Guard or soldiers who accompanied the political commanders of the 112 in the following meetings of the 112, while the neighbors missed this help in the streets. Regional leaders, one worker explains, “didn’t even look in the room.” “There are colleagues who live in the affected areas and the company called them to come” from the first day, he comments. Five days later, workers continue to receive storm-related advisories.
