The management of the DANA disaster in the hours before the flooding caused by the overflowing of the Poyo ravine is raising more and more doubts as the details of everything that happened at the Coordination Center become known Emergency Department of the Generalitat Valenciana, Tuesday October 29. Several town halls confirmed to elDiario.es that they had not received any emergency notification from the Generalitat regarding the flooding of the Rambla, which at 5:30 p.m. carried twice as much water as the Ebro, the largest d ‘Spain. Furthermore, that same afternoon, at 6:30 p.m., the general director of the Valencian Security and Intervention Agency summoned the municipalities downstream of the Forata dam to a meeting which ultimately did not take place. At 6:45 p.m., the Minister of Justice, Salomé Pradas, informed the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, that the Magro River reservoir was about to overflow. This information never reached the municipalities of Ribera Baixa which could have suffered from a real swamp.
The big question is why the population was only informed at 8:12 p.m., when a Civil Protection alert message was sent to cell phones asking citizens to stay at home and move away from rivers and ravines at a time when thousands of citizens were already stuck in parking lots, basements, work centers or roads. As this newspaper reported, one of the keys has been the weak capacity for reaction and decision-making throughout the management of the crisis. The Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi), responsible for dealing with extreme emergency cases, met at 5 p.m., when the National Meteorological Agency increased the risk level for Dana from orange to red nine hours and a half earlier, at 7:36 a.m.
In addition, the measuring services of the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar provided data on the level of the river channels. Consequently, before the first flood of the Poyo ravine which occurred around 12:20 p.m., the Emergency Coordination Center issued the hydrological alert: “A notice of increased flow in the Poyo ravine has been received from the Confederation, with a record of 264 cubic meters per second at the Riba-Roja del Turia capacity. The hydrological alert is activated in neighboring communities. The “advice to the population” which appears in this notice reads as follows: “Do not approach the banks of rivers and ravines which could be active”.
Although the flow level in the Poyo ravine subsequently decreased from 1:20 p.m., the Valencian Community Emergencies did not deactivate the alerts at any time. Simply, information was given on the evolution of the flow.
The CHJ, present in Cecopi, informed that at 6:43 p.m. 1,686 cubic meters per second were reached and that at 6:55 p.m. the force of the water drives the sensors and measuring systems. This riverbed was already carrying 2,282 cubic meters per second, so it experienced a rise of 2,000 cubic meters per second, at six o’clock in the afternoon, four times the normal flow of the Ebro.
From this whole situation, the mayors of the villages bordering the ravine had practically no information from Emergencies which would allow them to react in any way to protect the population. While the mayors of Aldaia, Guillermo Luján and Sedaví, José Cabanes, assure elDiario.es that they did not receive any type of emergency notice during the entire day of October 29, the mayor of Catarroja, Lorena Silvent (PSPV), reveals that only received by email and SMS the hydrological alert at 12:20 p.m. with a very generic message: “The rest of the day, we did not receive any type of communication on the situation of the ravine, even if we We have already established controls and communications with Chiva. to see the situation. At 5:30 p.m., there was a meter of water and by 6:30 p.m., it was already overflowing. In half an hour he was on the Camí Real. Formally, no one from 112 gave us any information on the cubic meters or the situation. During the last legislature, when there was an alert, Emergencies called us to telematic meetings with the affected populations.
The mayor of Paiporta, Maribel Albalat, although she could not confirm if she had received the first hydrological alert from Emergencies about the situation in the ravine, guaranteed that the rest of the day she had not received any information .
The most striking situation was that which occurred in Algemesí, a town affected in this case by the crisis of the Forata reservoir and the flooding of the Magro river. The Town Hall assures on its social networks that “at no time has it received information, updates or monitoring of the flow of the river or the Forata reservoir, for this reason it has not been possible to inform citizens of their progress. The former mayor, Marta Trenzano (PSPV), who wanted to show her support for the current mayor José Javier Sanchis (PP) in everything related to the management of the crisis, was surprised this Tuesday by the call that she received Emergency from the Generalitat on October 30, a day after the disaster: “They called me about a problem in Copal (Algemesí cooperative) because of the floods, thinking that I was mayor , while I ceased to be mayor after the last elections in May 2023.”
In statements to Spanish television, the first mayor Sanchis declared that “it is not a question of finding those responsible, it is a calamity, the rain cannot be controlled and the overflowing of the river has not could have been avoided, but here no one warned us.” “that water was going to come out of the Forata reservoir and that the flow rates were going to increase, no one told us.” Despite this, he assured that the Town Hall had tried to alert the population a few days before the arrival of “heavy rain” and that he had received a call on Tuesday 29 at noon saying that they were paying attention to the river, that ‘they were going to meet and that, once finished, they would see each other again: “This is the moment when I am waiting for this call and it came from the government delegation.” However, the powers to issue opinions of this type are the Emergencies of the Generalitat.
This way of proceeding at the Emergency Center of the Generalitat contrasts with the model of the Botánico government: “In the event of an emergency situation, the former regional secretary, José María Ángel, called us and convened virtual meetings to analyze the situation and agree on measures. “, say Trenzano and Silvent.
This newspaper contacted the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat to find out what specific information and by what means was transmitted to the municipalities concerned, without having obtained a response.
