Alex Trelinski
THERE’S been anger that the Valencian government was far too slow in sending an emergency alert warning on Tuesday- resulting in an unnecessary loss of lives from the flood disaster.
The State Meteorological Agency(Aemet) issued a warning of severe weather approaching the area on Monday at 10.48pm.
It then published a code ‘red’ warning on Tuesday at 9.41am covering the whole of Valencia province.
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Nothing was sent by the Valencian government until 8.03pm that day in the Valencia City area- hours after the deluge and flooding started.
The leader of Spain’s main opposition party- the Partido Popular(PP)- Alberto Nuñez Feijoo criticised Aemet and local water distributor, the Jucar Hydrographic Confederation, for not supplying enough information promptly.
Defending the slow alert response from the Valencian government led by the PP under Carlos Mazon, he went on the attack against the national government and public bodies answerable to them.
“I assure you that a regional president manages according to the information he receives, and the information that is received depends on bodies with exclusive competence of the central government, such as Aemet or the Hydrographic Confederation,” he said.
“No one can make decisions based on information that can be exact, inaccurate, or improvable.”
“Decisions are made based on the information they provide you at all times,” Feijoo stated.
Non-political weather experts have disagreed including climatologist Jorge Olcina from Alicante University.
“The red alert was given in plenty of time, and the first warning arrived on Monday evening,” he commented
“People should be aware that with a red alert, you should not leave home, but no one could have contemplated that people would go out and take out their cars and trucks as if it were a normal day.”
“That was a bit of the key to the high number of victims,” said the expert..
Aemet gives warnings in green, yellow, orange or red, depending on the degree of threat.
It is a colour system in sync with other European countries and effectively it is then up to emergency services run by Spain’s regional government to send alerts to residents when the risk situation requires it.
“In terms of emergency management, people were not really well informed and they found out about the warning through the media or through social media networks,” Olcina stated.
“Aemet gave the appropriate warning, but then it does not reach the population as it should,” he commented.
The text message eventually sent to Valencia City at 8.03pm on Tuesday using the Es-Alert system asked people to avoid any type of travel in Valencia province.
That’s when ravines and rivers were already overflowing in several municipalities of the Valencia metropolitan area.
In other parts of the province, the message came even later, when the situation was already desperate for many citizens.
Meteorologist Francisco Martín Leon said: “ If there is a red alert, the population must be asked to stay at home.”
“In certain areas of the Murcia region, they banned the movement of cars and suspended school classes the day before,” he added.
Sociologist Guadalupe Ortiz from Alicante University also believes that the Aemet red alert was not sufficiently taken into account.
However, he stressed that it is not the time to blame anyone, as he argues that what is failing is the system in general.
“With climate change, we urgently need to get to work on risk management,” he said.
