The Generalitat Valenciana has acknowledged in a report sent to the investigating judge that in the last meteorological red alert, unlike the one on October 29, it devoted itself to monitoring the Poyo ravine and its tributaries with all the means and resources at its disposal to control the flows on the ground. The actions of the Minister of Emergencies, Juan Carlos Valderrama (successor of Salomé Pradas in office), serve the magistrate to support the alleged negligence that is indirectly attributed to the former counselor investigated in the case. From a previous report, which this newspaper also reported, it appears that Valderrama convened four coordination meetings in just a day and a half. Not only that: it also dedicated itself, unlike last October 29, to monitoring the Poyo, Saleta and Gallego ravines, whose respective overflows caused most of the dana deaths. And all this, despite the fact that President Carlos Mazón and the PP defended that control of the ravines did not correspond to the Generalitat. However, in the report included in the case that details the meteorological episode that began on September 28 with the sending of an Es-Alert message to the population's mobile phones, the deployment of environmental agents for “surveillance work in riverbeds and ravines and information and pre-alert work in camping areas and areas where sports activities are carried out” is detailed. Firefighters and State Security Forces and Bodies were also used. All of this coordinated by the Generalitat Emergency Center.
Although in the Dana, no environmental agents were deployed and firefighters were withdrawn, in the last red alert the numbers of interventions exceeded a thousand. On September 28, at 1:31 p.m., the Emergency Center requested the deployment of environmental agents. The report in the hands of the judge, to which elDiario.es has had access, initially reported “a total of 332 pieces of information in the province of Alicante, 800 in the province of Valencia and 81 in the province of Castellón.”
However, at 9:25 p.m., the Forest Fire Prevention Centers (CPIF) updated the “intervention data”: 332 in the province of Alicante, 1,164 in Valencia and 81 in Castellón. The display contrasts with the performance in the dana.
The difference with the management of the October 29 disaster investigated by the Catarroja magistrate is enormously striking. On the eve of the dana, the deployment of environmental agents was denied to Emergencies, as revealed by a witness who testified before the judge. However, on the morning of October 29, the general director of Medio Natural, Luis Gomis, offered the agents in an internal communication addressed to the director of the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response, Emilio Argüeso, currently investigated in the procedure.
Argüeso has recently accused the senior official of Carlos Mazón's regional Executive of not having acted with “diligence”, by not having contacted him “directly” to make the offer. The surveillance device of the Provincial Firefighters Consortium was also removed from the Poyo ravine, with which Emergencies were left “blind,” according to the expression of one of the witnesses. This is one of the magistrate's avenues of investigation. Emergencies and Firefighters blame each other.
Unlike the failed surveillance device of the Dana ravines, in the last meteorological red alert, the Generalitat Emergency Center used multiple resources, as recognized in the report. At 6:38 p.m. on September 28, Emergencies requested the Provincial Firefighters Consortium to collaborate in the surveillance of the Rambla de Alcalá and in ravines and marsh areas of the North Coast of the province of Castellón “with the resources deemed appropriate.” He also requested collaboration from the Civil Guard and environmental agents, as well as local police forces in the affected areas.
In addition, a team from the Baix Maestrat was incorporated to check boulevards and ravines in the northern area. The first report, at 6:58 p.m., reported that there were no incidents and that the channels were dry. The Emergency Center proposed, as detailed in the report, that monitoring be carried out approximately every two hours, “until further notice, taking into account that this programming could vary depending on the evolution of the meteorological episode.”
Poyo, Saleta and Gallego ravines
At 8:25 p.m., the Firefighters were asked to “collaborate in monitoring” areas of rivers and ravines in the province of Valencia, including the Poyo, the Saleta, the Carraixet and the Buñol and Vaca rivers. The report reproduces a monitoring table that also includes the Gallego ravine.
In the early hours of September 30, despite certain communication problems between the Firefighters and the 'CoordCom', the Emergency black box that coordinates the agencies involved in the operations, it was reported that “everything was fine within the situation of intense rains” in the province of Castellón.
At 4:50, Emergencies received the monitoring data from the ravines. The next report came at 6:50. As can be seen from the report, during much of the day the troops deployed conveniently reported on the flows (at 8:40, 12:00, 2:14 and 4:13 p.m.).
Environmental agents detected some overflow. At 11:05, their collaboration was requested for the control of ravines in the province of Valencia and they were provided with the document with the details of the points and the control schedule. Just 15 minutes later, the agents reported an overflow on the Rambla del Val, at the mouth of the Túria in Ademuz.
The supervision was very detailed, unlike the zero action on October 29. At 12:41, the Local Police of Quart de Poblet reported that, “after monitoring the channels and ravines, there was only a rise in the level in Río Turia when passing through the urban center with current, with about two meters to go to reach (the) platform of the Roman bridge that was previously cut off.” On the other hand, at 1:34 p.m., the forestry brigades of the Valencia Fire Consortium reported that the flow of the Vaca River had increased between 50 and 60 centimeters.
Not only were firefighters, environmental agents, the Civil Guard or various bodies of the Local Police deployed—under the direction of the Emergency Center. On September 29, according to the report, Emergencies also assigned the National Police some “control and monitoring points of channels and ravines to carry out surveillance.”