“I can have a thousand troops at the emergency gate, but I can’t go in until the emergency director clears me.” It is with these words that the head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Lieutenant General Javier Marcos, explained this Monday the actions of the Armed Forces in the disaster caused by DANA in the Valencian Community. As he revealed, he himself ordered the activation of the first troops when he was aware of the danger, but they were only able to act when the services of the autonomous communities gave the “green light” .
General Marcos presented this Monday at the Moncloa Palace after the meeting of the crisis committee to monitor the effects of DANA, held at the UME headquarters, at the Torrejón de Ardoz base (Madrid), chaired by the King.
While the head of the Armed Forces device has been activated to deal with the emergency, the head of the UME explained that the decision of when and where to act belongs to the Valencian Community. At the same time, he defended the volume of soldiers deployed in recent days, for which he is responsible.
“From the beginning, all the capabilities of the Armed Forces, and not just the UME, have been put at the service of the Valencian Community,” he assured. Forecasts are expected to reach 7,800 troops deployed by the end of Monday, in addition to those responsible for maintenance and logistics tasks in the units.
The Armed Forces divided the 69 affected municipalities into four zones and were present in each of them, assured the general, while recognizing that they had to prioritize their actions. “The complexity is so great that it requires discipline and patience,” he surmised.
“I ask you to understand that the 7,800 soldiers are doing everything they can, we are doubling our teams,” he insisted, a clear message to citizens who demand more military presence in their streets. We didn’t leave a house behind. I know my soldiers well, they work hard. “No behavior of the armed forces can be called into question.”
In the account of the steps taken since last Tuesday, he explained that the EMU was monitoring the meteorological situation and, when he warned of the danger of the situation, he launched the two legal tools at his disposal to order that they surrender to fifty soldiers. of the Valencia Battalion to their posts, activating forward deployment to be able to act as soon as they receive “authorization” from the community. In fact, he assured that only 15 minutes had passed between the moment they received the order to act and the moment they left their bases, thus achieving around a hundred accesses to the area of Utiel-Requena. “As soon as the Generalitat gave the green light according to an established procedure, in a few minutes we were in the emergency zone,” he guaranteed.
Shortly after, a second intervention was launched, which led him to alert a thousand soldiers. “As soon as the green light was given to intervene in the rest of the province of Valencia, 1,000 soldiers in five battalions moved throughout the night. We did not intervene quickly, first because the weather conditions prevented it and then for reasons of order and discipline,” he reiterated, once again emphasizing regional responsibility.
“In an emergency situation, the autonomous community is responsible for the direction, who directs the emergency is the autonomous community, who decides where we go or where we do not go is the autonomous community. From there, as a military unit, we began to act.
With all this, General Marcos acknowledged that his “perception” is that “things are being done well and the situation is improving,” while recognizing that “it takes time.” For now, he revealed that a morgue with a capacity of 400 bodies has been installed.
The head of the EMU avoided entering into the debate on the level of alert that should have been declared and stressed that his mission was to act “to save”. “I don’t want to distract my attention or that of my soldiers a little bit in other evaluations that don’t correspond to me,” he said.
The general indicated his “total confidence” in the emergency services of the Valencian Community, as well as in the rest of the autonomies, and insisted that the responsibility for the action fell on him. “I am responsible for sizing, but entry into the area is the responsibility of the emergency director.”
Regarding this dimensioning, questioned by certain localities and citizens of the affected areas, he explained that it is not possible to deploy thousands of soldiers in the first hours because their work would be useless. “The worst enemy of an emergency situation is improvisation.” “The procedure was correct and the escalation of forces most appropriate, sharing the feeling of pain of all those involved.”
