The President of the Valencian Government, Carlos Mazón, declared during his appearance at the Corts last Friday, November 15, to account for his disastrous management of DANA which left at least 220 dead, that he “maintained his agenda fully conscious of the situation.” The vice-president, Susana Camarero, also justified that Mazón had respected his schedule, including his controversial meal, and had only presented himself at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) after 7:30 p.m.: “I was at a working lunch because I had no information neither from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) nor from the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) that it was to be elsewhere because the situation was different from that which had been mentioned to the president and the government delegate, who indicated that at 6 p.m. the situation had calmed down, that they were heading towards Cuenca and that, therefore, the DANA problem was over.
Beyond the fact that the Aemet issued a red notice at 7:36 a.m., maintaining it all day, and that the CHJ sent a warning returned by the Generalitat Emergencies at 12:20 p.m. due to the risk of overflow of the Poyo. ravine, These words of Mazón and Camarero are surprising given that from the first hour of that fateful October 29, Á Punt broadcast live the devastation that DANA was the cause, especially in Utiel, where the Flood of the Magro river began to flood its streets in the morning and by noon a missing person was already registered in the Alcúdia, who a few days later was found dead. Their meteorologists did not fail to warn of the danger. However, the former Minister of Justice, Salomé Pradas, despite warnings from Aemet and the CHJ, called Cecopi at 5 p.m. and Mazón maintained her agenda, including the controversial lunch with journalist Maribel Vilaplana.
The journalist questioned the fact that, as Mazón himself said, he was “fully aware of the situation”, since, through a spokesperson, he recently assured that the president had not at any time spoken to him about DANA and had not expressed any concerns to him about it. It is all the more surprising, if possible, that Mazón’s presidential team transmits almost in real time everything that is broadcast on À Punt and published by most media outlets.
Concretely, as shown in the special programming of October 29, at 2 p.m., public radio and television had already been broadcasting live and uninterrupted reports on DANA for seven hours, programming which continued without interruption for approximately 17 hours . At this time the midday newscast begins, the most watched space on the network, where he summarizes the day.
At that time (2:00 p.m.), Mazón was in a meeting with unions and employers to talk about regional budgets, a meeting in which he criticized the University of Valencia for suspending classes, to an extent that he considers it exaggerated. But as the cameras of À Punt reflected, La Ribera Alta, Catadau, Llombai, Alfarp had already suffered the worst with torrential rains which had transformed the streets into ravines. Vehicles swept away, drivers rescued and yards stranded throughout the area. The roof of the Llombai and Alcúdia cooperatives collapsed. In Alzira, firefighters also rescued two drivers by helicopter. In many points along the Canal de Navarrés, La Costera, Vall d’Albaida, Bunyol and Utiel-Requena, more than 100 liters fell in just one hour.
In the news it was highlighted that the Valencia region was on red alert and it was already announced that the A-7 was cut near Montortal, in l’Alcúdia, in the direction of Alicante with almost 300 blocked trucks. Drivers of the A-3, already closed near Requena, also suffered. The town of Tous was isolated all morning. The Military Emergency Unit was already ready to intervene.
Attention was focused on the Magro River. The Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat had issued a special hydrological alert notice in the municipalities of the river basin: “Attention because we have last minute news. The Magro River has just overflowed near Utiel. What does that mean, that all this water has to go down here (Carlet). And its mouth in the Júcar, in Algemesí, is very worrying,” warned the À Punt correspondent. It was around 2:30 p.m., time when Mazón began his meal, first justified by the presidency as personal and then as professional, at Ventorro.
At 2:14 p.m., there was a live telephone conversation with the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, who said the situation was “very critical, terrible” and said he did not remember “any seen anything like it”: “The river overflowed and now the streets look like rivers,” he said.
At 3:24 p.m., the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, announced the activation of the UME at the request of the Generalitat Valenciana, to deal with the situation caused by DANA in the region of Utiel (Valencia).
Until then, according to the Ministry of Justice and Interior, resources had been mobilized to deal with the incidents that occurred in the municipalities of the Valencian Community and more than 500 calls had been received through the emergency number “112 RESUME “. . The storm caused incidents on 21 roads in the road network, the total closure of the ports of València and Sagunt and the impact of several Metrovalencia lines.
Some of the operations carried out consisted of several rescues in the Ribera Alta area, mainly involving stranded cars or people asking for help to leave their homes and the rescue helicopter was mobilized. Furthermore, people from a Carlet nursing home had been relocated to other rooms after one of the pavilions was flooded.
None of this was enough for Mazón to suspend or interrupt his meal to arrive at 5:00 p.m. at Cecopi, already called. He arrived after 7:30 p.m. and the message to the population was not sent until 8:11 p.m.
