“According to forecasts, the storm is moving towards the Serranía de Cuenca, so it is expected that around 6:00 p.m. its intensity will decrease in the rest of the Valencian Community.” These are statements that President Carlos Mazón issued in a tweet at 1:14 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, the day of the tragedy that claimed the lives of a dozen villages and more than 150 people. Then he deleted it. The public and official agency forecast models used by all national and international governments, television channels and experts – those of Aemet, the State Meteorological Agency – do not reflect this or a weakening.
The red alert was given at 7:36 a.m. the same day. Aemet, in addition to displaying forecasts on time, publishes all its alerts on social networks. At that moment it already warns of a red, the maximum danger level: “29/10 07:36 #AEMET updates #FMA in C. Valenciana. Maximum red level. Active TODAY and TOMORROW. The red areas not only persist throughout the morning, but also expand.
At noon, the last report available for Mazón before going out to talk about the supposed weakening of the storm, the warning remains unchanged. When the President of the Generalitat reports a favorable situation, the experts continue to paint a very unfavorable picture and this will continue in the following updates (available here), that of 4:30 p.m., 5:00 p.m. and 5:54 p.m. The report at 7:54 p.m. continues with a red alert, although in a more restricted area. Indeed, the rains had calmed down at that time, but the flooding of the rivers had been arriving since the morning and had swallowed up everything in its path.
All the models also indicated that the storm was moving north, towards Castellón and Tarragona, as it was and this is what all the media reported, although the president said it was heading towards the “Serranía de Cuenca”. Which scientists or authority did you rely on to make public a tweet that made you think there was no risk? When questioned, official sources from the Presidency of the Generalitat briefly respond “Aemet”. The public television that followed Dana more closely and which has a team of five meteorologists, the regional channel À Punt, also reported that day what was going to happen with the Aemet models, and they were right. Indeed, two hours after Mazón’s contradictory appearance, around 3 p.m. in the afternoon, On Valencian Community television they declared that the risk was maximum and asked people not to leave their homes. and they reported that the storm was heading north.
Unless there was an informal or verbal conversation, as the Palau de la Generalitat suggests, or a misunderstanding, the rigorous, official and public information contradicts Mazón’s version. At Aemet – to which Feijóo attributed responsibility this Thursday despite the fact that they confirmed their forecasts – they released a statement in which they affirm that “the impact of a meteorological phenomenon depends on the preparation to face it and of evaluation and measurement”. that adopted by the autonomous communities” and continues: “AEMET information is always available, automatically, there is no need to request it.
The sources consulted, including physicists and meteorological experts, agree on the fact that this episode left little doubt and certainly no doubt about its importance. “Any system of this magnitude can suffer from temporary weakening, but we know that it can quickly strengthen again,” so even if there was unofficial talk of weakening, that would not mean that it would not. There was not the same risk. Additionally, at that time, the rivers were overflowing.
Incomprehensibly, the president also misinforms on this subject during his public appearance, in which he assures that we are “without hydrological alert, so everyone is very attentive”. Fifty minutes earlier, an official account of its own department, Emergencies (which depends on the Ministry of Justice headed by a PP politician, Salomé Pradas) had tweeted exactly the opposite after the opinions of the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar: “The Coordination emergency issues a special hydrological alert notice to the municipalities of the Poyo ravine area, the deadliest of the disaster. Mazón not only confirmed the data his government had, he also contradicted it. He concluded his speech in an optimistic tone: “And everyone is very attentive to the professionalism of our troops. » What happened five hours later is well known.
