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More than 4,000 professionals and 148 snow plows will ensure the safety of the roads of Castilla y León this winter, at a time particularly sensitive to the consequences of the climate after the devastating High Level Isolated Depression (DANA) which left, until today Today, 222 deaths in eastern Spain.
The Junta de Castilla y León has launched the winter roads campaign, a system that will last from November 1 to April 30, 2025 and whose objective is the prevention of risky situations to guarantee the safety of citizens.
In total, the system will be made up of 479 road professionals, 148 snow plows and a total of 130 flow storage infrastructures, to which will be added the Rescue and Rescue helicopter with the unit attached to it and the Logistics and Emergencies Support Unit.
Also more than 2,900 Civil Protection volunteers and nearly 800 environmental agents from the Community and the Es-Alert alert system and the Smart Rural Territory platform, which has more than 100 prevention sensors to guarantee the safety of citizens.
The advisors of the Presidency, Luis Miguel González Gago, of Environment, Housing and Territorial Planning, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones, and of Mobility and Digital Transformation, José Luis Sanz, presented this campaign this Monday , highlighting the hard work of the Council. provide “adequate assistance” to the citizens of the Community during all these months.
Road traffic
For this campaign, the Ministry of Mobility and Digital Transformation has increased the number of professionals it contributes to the operation with a total of 479 people.
A wide range of material resources is also at your disposal, consisting of a total of 130 flow storage infrastructures and 148 snow removal machines, in addition to flow stocks of around 15,000 tonnes, as indicated by the Minister of Mobility.
Furthermore, he indicated that, to achieve the objective of guaranteeing the safety of citizens, machines and personnel are mobilized “16 hours a day”. “Snow plows already work at 6 a.m. and can continue their activity until 10 p.m.,” he stressed.
He also highlighted that in the conservation contracts renewed in 2024, for León Oeste, Ávila, Palencia and Valladolid, and in those that will be launched this year, for Burgos Sur and Soria, in addition to the normal schedule, it will be extended. at nighttime hours if “unfavorable climatological circumstances with exceptional precipitation” are expected.
Sanz explained that the Ministry of Mobility and Digital Transformation has made available to the operation the advantages offered by the Smart Rural Territory platform. “It provides administrations with a platform to monitor Internet of Things sensors for utility management,” he said.
As a novelty, the increase in the number of sensors has been studied according to the demands and needs of the regional road network, so the number of 122 sensors will continue to “grow”, according to Sanz, to “continue to ensure that each of the Castilla y León roads safer today”.
Prevention, anticipation, coordination and information
The Minister of Environment, Housing and Territorial Planning, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones, for his part stressed that the pillars of the Community’s winter road network are “anticipation and prevention , coordination and information.
The advisor indicated that some of the preventive actions carried out are “weather observations, weather forecast bulletins for 5,850 localities, variable forecasts through the meteorological application and analysis of bulletins from the National Meteorological Agency (AEMET). “
“From the Emergency Coordination Center of Civil Protection, the analysis of adverse situations is intensified and weather models are studied,” he added, assuring that “an assessment of the weather situation is carried out daily “.
“In the event that the possibility of an unfavorable situation is estimated, the estimated forecast is communicated through specific meteorological reports which are prepared at the Emergency Coordination Center and which are disseminated to different organizations and entities,” he said. he declared.
Once the adverse weather episode occurs, the Emergency Coordination Center carries out “continuous monitoring of the incidents recorded in room 112” and “the available resources are mobilized to respond to them and coordinate those that need to be resolved”.
Es-Alert and AML system
This SMS telephone alert system is integrated, as Quiñones indicates, into the National Alert Network and allows Civil Protection authorities “to send generalized and immediate alert messages to cell phones located in an area affected by an emergency or disaster.
Concretely, Es-Alert allows people who are in the zone of influence of a major emergency or a possible disaster to receive, in addition to information on this specific situation, “behavioral guidelines and recommendations to follow” .
The advisor emphasized that the system “has already been used several times, with two tests in 2022 and with the first use last October.”
Regarding information, he assured that it is provided to citizens and the winter operation through the website of the Citizen Protection and Assistance Service, the meteorological website of the Civil Protection Agency and the networks 1-1-2 social services and the municipal notification system. .
Coordination
As mentioned, another key element to making the Winter Service Plan work is coordination at three levels.
In the event of a major emergency situation, the Civil Protection Service “provides support through its own means, such as the Rescue and Relief Group (GRS), the Emergency Logistics Support Unit (UALE) and the Civil Protection volunteers.
“The personnel and resources of Natural Heritage, like the nearly 800 environmental agents, are also part of the operation,” he added, assuring that, as long as the episode lasts, the CCE remains at the disposal territorial delegations.
The infrastructure and resources of the Ministry of Health are also brought together with 24 hospitals, 281 health centers and continuing care points, four medical helicopters and 604 ambulances of different types.
And the infrastructures of the Ministries of Education, Family and Equal Opportunities and Culture, Tourism and Sports integrate this system, which closes its structure with the information channels that are assigned to the Ministry of the Presidency.
DANA: “We are ready”
Quiñones also assured that the device of Castilla y León “is armed and works all year round” in the face of “different risks” and that the Community would be “prepared” if a phenomenon similar to the devastating DANA which affected the Valencian Community, Castilla – La Mancha and Andalusia.
“We are ready with all this device which integrates different means as well as technological means with SMS in areas where this communication is necessary and which have already been used,” he concluded.
