“Sánchez abandoned us, but the councilor decides on the urgency”

A strong dose of arbitrariness intervenes in every catastrophe. Not only because reality ends up exceeding predictions, but also because human behavior is unpredictable or because things could have turned out differently. Chance also marks politics.

Elisa Nunez She would have been the woman who would have led DANA if not for the twist in the scenario with which Vox changed the map of territorial power just four months ago.

In July this year, the feast of Santiago Abascal decided to break with the PP in the five autonomous governments they shared, arguing that the popular had accepted the distribution of migrant minors from the Canary Islands.

Vox advisors left their posts and Elisa Núñez, who had joined them shortly before, also left the group, slamming the door. He sent a letter to Abascal and criticized “radical drift” in which the party had imposed itself on issues such as immigration or gender-based violence.

Until then, he held the position of advise of the Interior and Justice of the Generalitat Valenciana under the presidency of Carlos Mazon. In other words, if the political storm had not preceded the climatological storm, the red button of the DANA crisis would have remained in their hands.

Now what’s really interesting is that the government left them “abandoned” and the words of Pedro Sanchez to justify his management of the crisis, they seem to him “a insult to the Valencians“.

Otherwise, he tries to avoid evaluations by “not having been” to emergency meetings and “without having all the information” at his disposal. However, he specifies that “with hindsight, it is very easy” to determine whether the population could have been informed beforehand or not.

“I think that in prevention you should never skimp“It’s always better to shoot from above,” he says.

It is his turn to manage the fire in the Campanar building, which caused the death of ten people, and a much less virulent DANA in September 2023. In these situations, “the advise of the Interior is the one who has the single order emergency.”

The previous DANA

On September 1 of last year, Núñez also received a special notice -the highest level of alert accompanied by red notices- from AEMET and the Hydrographic Confederation due to the formation of a DANA over the next two days.

With alert level 2, Núñez called a meeting at the Emergency Coordination Center with all the organizations involved, as also happened during the last crisis. With the difference that this 2023 crisis committee could be convened with 24 hours in advance.

This is a question of protocol, since without alert level 2, the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) is not convened. Last year’s DANA is also not comparable to this one, since there were only a few floods in Castellón and no deaths, but we can learn from it.

“What you have to do is make decisions. You receive advice from the technicians, but in the end it is you who make the decision to activate different measures or pick up the phone to tell the president to implement them,” explains Elisa Núñez. She specifies that it is what the regulations dictate and exempts the president of the Generalitat to have to take control now.

The performance of his successor in office, Salome Pradaswas strongly criticized for not having reacted sooner and for having alerted the population by cell phone when the water had already flooded several towns. Núñez sent him a message of support the day after the disaster and he has stayed away ever since.

“That night I felt no relief from having been at the front a short time before, rather I experienced it with a sense of responsibility always present. You put yourself in the role of the person in charge and you experience it with great intensity. But what was up to me was to support my neighbors and friends at a time like this,” he says.

In these moments of crisis, Núñez defends that ““The information has always circulated well.” between AEMET, AVEMET -Valencian Association of Meteorology-, the Hydrographic Confederations or the Government Delegation. And he assures that all the data coming from these organizations has been “perfectly understandable” for emergency personnel, within which the Minister of the Interior and Justice makes decisions.

She, she insists, had no problem with it. “But do we need to review the protocols? In a drama of this type, you always have to review everything, obviously.”

Sánchez’s “Ask It”

After all this immediate crisis management, it is time to negotiate with the central government.

– Should they have immediately asked the Generalitat for the direct intervention of Moncloa, so that a national emergency could be declared?

– President Mazón appeared, explained what he had asked from the President of the Government and said that he was going to ask for more. It was like we were living in another country.

And there, the former Minister of the Interior goes further in her reflections. “If I drown and a man walks by and sees me, can you tell me from above to ask him? Sánchez left us abandonedhelp arrived in dribs and drabs and his words seem to be an insult to the Valencians.”

According to Núñez, this sentence from the president, pronounced four days after the floods, is even more serious given the “devastating consequences” they had.

“That there are people who are desperate for help, that it’s like a war and that aid was provided to other countries without response,” he laments.

An uncertain future

The former advisor, a lawyer by profession, now teaches at the University and is working on reopening her law firm. He doesn’t want to know anything about Vox – “I have already told Abascal everything I had to say to him” – and, at 46, he is not closing the door to a return to the Generalitat.

In the past, she was active in the New Generations of the PP and was an advisor to the Immigration Department of the Government of Francisco Camps.

– Would you be ready to come back?

– It depends.

– What does it depend on?

-There are many things that need to be valued. So it depends.

Her successor, Salomé Pradas, seems to have her days numbered after DANA. Mazón announced the creation of a new Department of Emergencies and Interior with greater powers in this matter, although at the moment it has not been revealed who will occupy it.