“But, please, you haven't sent any message!” That reproach exclaimed Miguel Polo, president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ), and the rest of the agency's technicians who were connected to the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) on October 29 when they verified that, after a long pause, emergencies of the Generalitat did not react to the delicate situation in the dam of Forata. Polo, in his statement before the judge of the Dana after more than ten months of silence, recalled the slowness, the little agility, the eternal debates and some parsimony of those responsible for the Generalitat. “Who has to make the decisions is the one who directs the plan, it is the Minister (Pradas), I perceived indecision of the Minister,” said the president of the CHJ, according to the reconstruction of his statement from several sources consulted by Eldiario.es.
Miguel Polo, in a testimony that lasted about eight hours, revealed that, even before 18.00, in the initial phase of the Cecopi before the first pause, he already proposed that “a message would be sent to the population to get on high floors” for the danger in the Foraata dam. The ES-alert sent at 20.11, when there were already deceased and hundreds and citizens remained trapped by floods, that successful advice excluded.
After a first moment of the start of the Cecopi focused on floods in Utiel, Polo asked for the floor and warned about the high flow tip in the dam. After that warning, there was “half an hour of reflection” and a first “disconnection”.
Once the meeting was restarted after the first long pause, Pradas announced that the population of the municipalities potentially affected by Forata was not going to evacuate. The witness said that in the alert message the population to take refuge in high floors was asked: “It was the minimum measure that should be given.”
At the Cecopi meeting there was a “debate about the situation” – concluded from the “uncertainty” about “what would happen to coronation” – in which the Minister asked “what was a scenario or another.” “From the CHJ we did not give credit to ask that when they should know that,” he added.
The “doubts” of the Minister
The president of the CHJ insisted that the Cecopi did not make “decisions.” The then Department Salome Pradas, currently investigated in the case, “had doubts about whether he could take such or that measure and (Jorge) Suarez (deputy director general of emergency) told him that the law protected him to take any measure.”
After the analysis of the dam breakage of the dam, Polo requested that a message be sent to the population of the banks of the Magro and Júcar rivers. It was decided to send a specific message for the dam and another to the entire province of Valencia. Before the following disconnection, that was (at least in theory) the decision that was going to be executed by the Emergency Directorate (the Generalitat).
During the pauses, the permanent committee of the CHJ reviewed the flows of the dams and contacted mayors. Notable was the reference to the first mayor of Carlet, the popular Laura Sáez, who called him to ask for information about the flow that came out of Forata. Polo, as he said, consulted the national system of flood areas and, calculating a flow of 1,000 cubic meters per second, said: “You do not have to worry, the river will overflow on the left, water will enter through the sports center, but the people do not.” Sáez, according to the witness, confirmed the next day “that was so.” Something similar described in relation to mayors of a couple more municipalities.
The Poyo flow warning at 18.43
The president of the CHJ also explained that the head of the Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH) personally alerted him that he had sent to the Emergency Coordination Center at 18.43 the email with the notice on the increase in the flow in the Poyo ravine.
However, Polo explained the limitations of the Saih Riba-Riba Sensor to predict the overflows of the ravines: “In the face of civil protection it is not useful because it does not give time to prevent.”
On the other hand, he also acknowledged that after ten months of the Dana, “it is very easy” to deduce what “had to have done or not”, although on October 29 “no one was able to foresee what was going to happen.”
Adding the flows of other ravines that overflowed before the poyo (Horteta or Galician), the 1,600 cubic meters detected by the SAIH sensor in Riba-Roja “ended up being double.”
“The severity of the 1600 (cubic meters per second registered by the sensor) is that there are already 2000 in Horteta and another 1000 in Galician and all that joins,” he said.
SAIH offers “complementary information”
Miguel Polo held the Emergency Coordination Center for the low proactivity to follow the sensitive fronts on the ground that fateful day. The witness recalled that the overflow of the ravine of the poyo began upstream, in Chiva, and of that fact the CHJ had no information.
The Saih, he said, “is not the Truman show” (in reference to the film directed by Peter Weir and played by Jim Carrey about a panoptic bubble in which the protagonist is under constant control). On the contrary, it is a system that offers “complementary information”, which “must be contrasted.”
Polo was asked and he was held several occasions about the lack of attention that was given to the SAIH notice of 18.43. It was taken for granted, he explained that in emergencies the mail that warned of the increase in the flow had been received (the Department of the Generalitat passed the notice to the firefighters half an hour later, as reflected in its 'black box' operational).
In addition, Miguel Polo argued, “they should have taken measures before.” The SAIH automatic notice “is still a redundant mail,” said the witness, who endorsed the monitoring of the flows to the emergency center rather than the CHJ itself.
The Civil Protection Key: “Anticipate”
After 19.00, when the connection to the Cecopi resumed, those responsible for the CHJ verified that the ES-Alert had not been sent. When Pradas read them the draft of the message and reported that one was going to be sent to the province and another specific to the regions of the Hoya de Buñol and Ribera Alta, the Saih area head, according to Polo, asked to be added to L'Horta Sud.
The president of the CHJ lamented the improvisation by the Generalitat. “I do not understand how at 10.00 in the morning, that there is red notice, planning had not been done. This data only serves to corroborate planning, we must not improvise at 19.00.”
Polo defended that the “success” of civil protection is to “anticipate.” “HE That had to be done for previous episodes in which it was done, ”he said.
The witness (one of the main objectives of the defenses and the Palau de la Generalitat) discharged in emergencies and in the little agility of Salome Pradas and his team the lack of measures before a catastrophe that left 229 deceased. “We suggest measures and, to this day, I still don't understand why they were not adopted,” Pole concluded.