Valencia City Hall, through the Municipal Operational Coordination Center (Cecopal), organized a extraordinary device of 22 buses which displaced people for 48 hours, notably from Sedaví and Paiporta.
All the people were transported in “rapid round trips” to the reception centers in La Petxina and the Basket farm. A total of 95 drivers, plus 20 chief inspectors and officers, participated in DANA’s entire special EMT system, as the council said in a press release.
The mobility advisor and president of the EMTJesús Carbonell wanted to thank “the efforts made by the drivers and staff of the EMT Operations Department who worked tirelessly and allowed the rescue of many people on the night of the disaster.”
Carbonell pointed out that “when the city council decided that the EMT could be of great help in the transfer and rescue of those affected by the worst of the flooding, they did not hesitate for a second and offered every resources available at that time. “.
“But this would not have been possible without drivers who voluntarily offered to get back on the bus after leaving their shift. All buses capable of providing this extraordinary service were immediately activated. And a large team of inspectors and officers began to recruit driving personnel. “We wanted to help as quickly as possible, and the more people the better,” he stressed.
In this way, EMT Valencia has become a “single player” in mobility in the city due to the absence of Metrovalencia services. To absorb the new flow of demand in an exceptional context, the company adopted “urgent solutions” such as strengthening lines, readjusting the offer and hiring 50 new drivers to increase its services.
In addition, the company examines the increase in the number of travelers every day, in real time, line by line, to “adjust supply to changing and new demand”.
EMT also took stock, in recent hours, of what the night of DANA was like, last October 29. The entity organized a system of 22 extraordinary buses to transport people affected by the floods in the districts and neighborhoods of the city that were suffering the worst floods.
950 people rescued on the Silla trail
The company estimates that 950 people trapped in their vehicles or arriving on foot from neighboring towns, such as Alfafar, Paiporta and Sedaví, were rescued on the Silla track. And 2,200 others on other roads like the V-30Castellar, Pinedo, Forn d’Alcedo, La Torre, Paiporta and on the A-3. The total number would exceed 3,000 displaced people and the operation lasted almost 48 hours.
Concretely, the device was organized at the beginning of the evening by the Valencia City Council, through Cecopal, where the city’s emergency operational commands were located, under the direction of the mayor, María José Catalá.
The entity was ordered to deploy the device with as many buses as possible. In this way, from Cecopal The buses were assigned “to areas with the most immediate emergencies to evacuate and rescue the most affected people”. All the drivers who were in the garages that night, once their work was finished, volunteered to participate in the system.
Cecopal’s first orders were to arrive “first” in the Castellar-l’Oliveral and Pinedo neighborhoods, but as the night wore on and the flood damage increased, buses also rescued those affected in La Torre, Pinedo and even Paiporta. and Sedavi.
All those rescued were quickly transported to two reception points, La Petxina and the Alqueria del Basket, which were activated from the first night by the Valencia City Hall. The buses made quick trips, back and forth, to serve as many people as possible, and all this “non-stop” until the early morning.
At first light, EMT buses were again called upon to expand the system. Attention, as the city council indicated, then focused on the A3, where “hundreds of people were still stuck”.
Movements to origin points
In the following days, once again following Cecopal’s instructions, EMT Valencia expanded its system to carry out a “completely opposite” operation to that of the previous hours. Many rescued people wanted to return to their point of origin, so the municipal transportation service transported them to their destination.
In total, throughout Tuesday night, early morning and throughout the following day, EMT deployed an operation with 36 drivers and a total of 12 chief inspectors and officers. Currently, when special services are repeated to points such as The Tower and the Forn of Alcedo or for the transfer of volunteers, a total of 95 drivers were mobilized within the special system, to which 20 principal inspectors and officers joined.
