In June 2012, citizens of Santa Fe (New Mexico, USA) received an unusual message on their phone accompanied by a beep and a vibration. This was the first warning from the security system. Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) which warned of a meteorological risk, in this case a flash flood. A decade later, the United States government’s Federal Communications Commission celebrated having ordered 70,000 of these messagesan essential part of your disaster prevention strategy.
The prestige of the WEA has led the European Union to ask Member States to equip themselves with a National Public Alert System in response to the obligations dictated by the Code 110 of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC). The main difference in Europe is that the prerogative to use thistwig It is solely in the hands of the emergency coordinator of each region. In Spain, this corresponds to the services of Civil defense of each Autonomous Community activate the ES-Alert system.
Thus, the meteorological authority of our country, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), does not have the power to send these alerts as does its American counterpart, the National Weather Service (NWS) and especially the National Hurricane Center (NHC). This system, coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is in fact available to multiple authorities, from central to local: theorange alert“, for example, they went looking lost minors and are geolocated at the municipal level.
“The European Meteorological Services Consortium requested this system, and when it was implemented, it was received with great joy by Aemet,” recalls the meteorologist. Juan-Antonio Saladowho then worked for the Agency. “But we found ourselves facing the Spanish administrative system.” And the case of the premiere of the ES-Alert system last year could have set a precedent that would make the Communities autonomous “more reluctant” to translate the red weather warning into a type 1 alert level, in which the telephone message is sent.
Due to the restriction of mobility and the emergency activation measures that this implies, “the Autonomous Communities are trying to retain as much as possible the message transmission system,” Salado explains. However, U.S. weather services can use the WEA to send weather information and safety tips as the Aemet account from Valencia does on its Twitter account. In fact, Salado reveals, there was “disappointment” within the Agency itself when it learned it would not have access to the emergency message system. “The Americans themselves tell us that Europe has the best forecasting system, but a disastrous alert“.
Predictive warnings vs. observed
One of the debates opened after the DANA disaster concerns the type of red notice that Aemet issued at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday the 29th. This notice is called ‘.observed‘ in meteorological terminology, that is to say it corresponded to the confirmation of the accumulation of torrential precipitation -200 L/m2 in 24 hours- in the western area of Valencia. The second opinion is like ‘predictive”, depending on what the models predicted. For five days, Aemet had been warning in publications and bulletins of the exceptional nature of the approaching episode.
In the United States, since the reform of the CNH in 2017, the Center no longer needs to wait for the formation of a hurricane to start issuing alerts and calculating trajectories. Seven years ago, American authorities recognized that forecasting models and satellite technology had reached a sufficient level of reliability to progress. Having Europe, and Spain by extension, with such advanced or more advanced resources, wouldn’t it have been beneficial for Aemet to activate the red notice a few days earlier for better forecasts?
“With the With the tools we have, we cannot afford to have more than 200 deaths“, drops the meteorologist Francisco Martin Leon. For three decades at Aemet, he worked specifically on the categorization of DANA, and advocates for this change in the alert system. “In exceptional cases, Aemet should be able to launch red notices 24 or 48 hours in advance“However, the information channel towards Civil Protection and other autonomous bodies Yes, it issues predictive warnings. “Messages like ‘Be warned, there is an 80% chance that in five days we will reach the red level’.”
“The most useful thing for the population is not the observed alert, it is the probability of a red alert in 24 and 48 hours. even with a probability of 10%“, reasons Martín León. For this reason, he defends “a top-to-bottom review” of this alert system so that Aemet can launch alerts directly, after agreeing in parallel on the message with regional Civil Protection services. “this does not “make it invalid for civil governments or emergency centers to subsequently take decisions that bind the population.”
Another difficulty: flood alerts
The National Hurricane Center not only issues warnings for these major associated phenomena, but also for associated risks, such as swollen either flash floods (flash floods). The alert level is also issued in based on impact: Milton was considered an extreme risk because it affected the Tampa area of Florida, which is densely populated and easily flooded. In Spain, DANA caused significant destruction in areas with relatively little rain but devastated by the storm. water overflowing into the ravines.
This adds another point of complexity. Even if Aemet had had access to the ES-Alert alerts, this alert would not have corresponded to it, but to the different Hydrographic Confederations. “The United States and other countries that tend to experience many catastrophic phenomena such as hurricanes or floods tend to unify their services for this reason,” explains Martín León. “To have ‘National Hydrological and Meteorological Services‘, a model to follow and, in terms of alerts, to which we must achieve.
“The World Meteorological Organization states that National meteorological services must be accompanied by hydrology“, recognizes Salado. “This happens in Portugal and in countries that began to organize them in the middle of the 20th century, but not in others that had it before, such as the United Kingdom or Spain. “DANA, he anticipates, will lead to a major revision of these established models. “From a meteorological point of view, we have only made progress in the face of these problems,” he reflects. “And unfortunately, Large investments in personnel and resources come after major investments. disasters. »
