The President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, defended his government’s response to the floods that hit the Horta region, saying he did not receive a key notification in time from the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ). According to Mazón, it was only at 6:43 p.m. that the Generalitat received email warning of drastic increase in flow in Poyo Ravineat which point the flow rate would have increased from 80 to 90 liters per second to the alarming level of 1,700 liters.
“We did not have the information from the Confederation Government. We did not have it”Mazón said the Generalitat could not send mobile alerts to citizens before 8:11 p.m. By then, according to public criticism, many residents of the affected area were already in danger.
However, the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar, which depends on the central government, assures that flow data is public and available in real timeupdated every five minutes. Although some sensors were damaged by DANAa CHJ spokesperson told laSexta that in a few minutes they were able to transmit the historical data to the network, contradicting Mazón’s version about the lack of information.
Furthermore, one wonders why, if the Generalitat received the email at 6:43 p.m., the alert was not issued until 8:11 p.m., an hour and a half later. As we know, Mazón was not present at the emergency meeting until 7 p.m., even if It started at 5:00 p.m.. This delay in Mazón’s intervention could have been critical in making decisions aimed at alerting the population.
