The former Consolera de Justicia and Interior Salomé Pradas, head of Emergencies on October 29, 2024, day in a Dana razed the province of Valencia leaving 228 fatal victims (three of them still remain missing), appeared before the judge of Catarroja who instructs the case last Friday in the city of Justice of Valencia. Pradas, who only answered the questions of his defense, responsible for the technicians for the management of the catastrophe and acknowledged that he was not prepared to occupy the Department.
If last Tuesday, the List of Pradas calls was made public La Dana Day, this Thursday Eldiario.es has had access to the full statement of the former Conssellera, in which he maintains that his position was “institutional”, which he had no technical knowledge and that he had never exercised any position related to the emergency, so he “had no experience or knowledge”; In addition, he recounts before the judge that he had no advisors in this matter. Likewise, he reviews that the measures “proposed” the technicians, “experts” in emergencies with “overwhelming experience”, at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi), which explained that emergency plans are designed to be applied “with automatism, not to have to think or make decisions.”
Pradas insists that those who had to coordinate the response to the emergency were the technicians, whom it refers as “experts”, and in which, once level 2 of the flood plan is decreed, an address committee that exercises a “unique, ccoordinated and collegiate” direction is constituted. “More than a unique command there is a unique direction,” says Pradas, who clarifies that he had been in his functions for three months and it was the first time he faced an emergency of this type.
According to the judge, she enters to act, as a competent Minister, once the flood plan is displayed and level 2 is decreed; that is, at 3 pm in Utiel-Requena, at 18.45 in the banks; Already at 7 pm for the entire province: it was “at the foot of the canyon from the first minute, with its emergency team, busy and worried.” Communicating by telephone and at the Emergency Coordination Center.
Distribution of competencies
The ex-manager explains that the competence in citizen security is state competence and that the ES-ALErt system, which was launched at 8:11 pm on October 29, with a large part of the affected municipalities already flooded by water, depends on the CENEM (National Emergency Center), while stressing that the Ministry “also has the possibility, without request from the Autonomous Community, to declare the emergency situation level 3” “Catastrophe of great size” that also affected Castilla La Mancha, Andalusia and Murcia.
As for the Generalitat Valenciana, he states that he must intermediate between the users of 112 and the agencies integrated into it, as well as between state agencies such as AEMET or the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) and the municipalities: “There is no autonomic civil protection body as such”, but there are local police and forest firefighters or provincial consortiums. Regarding the municipalities, which “were notified by the Generalitat of all special notices,” he says that “they should have their emergency and flood plans.”
Pradas loads against the CHJ, who says that “the channels of her demarcation should have monitored and notify any increase in flow”, while the Generalitat launched a “special notice” by the Dana on the 28th, to the municipalities “by rain, wind and coastal phenomena”, as well as the agencies integrated in 112 and official organizations, “for that reason the classes were suspended in Utiel.”
Aemet and CHJ’s information notices
Pradas argues that “all notices” issued by the Emergency Coordination Center were based on the information of Aemet and CHJ: “According to Aemet, 150-180 liters would be reached, although 700 or 800 was reached at some points”, information that pointed out that it never came to them. In addition, the former emergencies commissioned the regional secretary, the general director and her chief of cabinet the monitoring of the emergency in the morning of 29, while laments that the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, did not summon her to the meeting with Aemet, CHJ, Adif, Renfe, National Police or Civil Guard that was held at 9.30 am.
As he says, the hydrological alert on the lean is decreed at 11.45 hours, and a new hydrological alert was issued, and insists that each bulletin and each notice be referred to the municipalities and organism integrated.
Pradas spoke on the phone at 12.23 and 12.48, before and after meeting with their respective teams and just a few minutes before he will try to contact, without success, with President Carlos Mazón -according to the call record of that day, around a hundred, of the ex -consciselle. In those conversations, Pradas argue that at that time he did not consider, “and the delegate either”, activate the Emergency Military Unit (UME) because forest firefighters and consortium were already deployed. The level 2 of emergencies had not yet been decreed. It is at 2 pm when the exconsellera requests “immediately” the UME to Bernabé, “although it took three hours to activate.” At 8.30 pm it is requested for Valencia, “it was present but its activation was missing, which corresponded to the government.”
Throughout the morning, he insists, nobody told him about the danger of the Poyo ravine and even the CHJ issued three consecutive flow declines (13.40, 15 and 16.13 hours), “but there was no talk of overflows or what happened later.” “Until 18.43 hours there is no information about flow by the CHJ; in the Cecopi that rise of flow sent by email is not verbalized,” that information does not arrive. “As for the overflow of the Magro River, he says he finds out by the mayor of Utiel,” not by the CHJ; Neither notice, nor notice. ”
The Cecopi
The Integrated Operational Coordination Center is constituted at 5 pm (in the room there was no television screen, as described), and it is at that time that the emergency media verified what was happening and level two is decreed. With regard to communications with the Government delegate, Pradas says they were “more difficult” by not being Bernabé present in the room of the Emergency Coordination Center, in L’Eliana -the representative of the Centra Executive was convened telematically, as well as the Aemet spokesmen and the CHJ-. In addition, she insists that it was she who called her on the phone at 5:00 p.m. because Bernabé did not telephone her “throughout the afternoon.”
Those who were in L’Aliana were the regional secretary, Emilio Argüeso; the general director ,; the emergency operating chief, José Miguel Basset; or the president of the Diputación de Valencia, Vicente Mompó, among others. “This emergency had many concurrent circumstances, there was a lack of information and was acting as it had, and it was proposed based on it,” says the former Conssellera, who insisted that it was the technicians who “valued and proposed.” In this sense, he considers that he would have been a “recklessness” not to follow the criteria of the technicians and that he could have incurred prevarication.
The Forata Dam and El Barranco del Poyo
Regarding Forata, he declared that at 16.44 there was already news from the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation that he could collapse: at 17.30 there was a new hydrological alert on the Júcar and the Magro and the CHJ put the focus on Forata. “All the information at that time was about the Forata dam and not on the Poyo ravine,” he insists. And remember that the mayor of Utiel requested helicopters because he said that “they were already drowning. Pradas reviews that he had no technical information or notice of the flood of the Poyo ravine and that he was doing” what the technicians proposed. ”
The CHJ, sentence, warned “very late” by email to the Generalitat and not to the Cecopi that the ravine “had already occurred.” They were “aware of what happened” about 9 pm. In addition, he points out that his chief of cabinet is from Benetússer and that if he had known “he would have warned.”
The ES-Alert system, “in an experimental phase”
Regarding the ES-Alert system, the former contest is justified by saying that it is not regulated in any national norm, but that there is a protocol of the Ministry, “a provisional document that has to be approved by the National Civil Protection Commission that is a kind of user guide, there are no technical guidelines, and in that protocol it was said that the Ministry could launch the ES-Alert”. The system, he points out, is from CENEM (National Center for Emergency Monitoring and Coordination) and is the competence of the General Directorate of Civil Protection of the Ministry.
In the Generalitat “it does not consist” the ES-Alert in the plans for the notice to the population, “neither in emergencies nor in floods.” “The Dana Day was not a warning mechanism to the population, it was in the experimental test phase,” defends Pradas, who stresses that of the two tests that were performed, “a failed.”
The time at which ES-Alert begins to be valued, by Jorge Suárez (emergency deputy director), is 19: “It is debated about suitability, not being alarming, its content and geographical scope.” The evacuation of the municipalities that could be affected by the breakage of Foraata was also proposed, which was considered to be “counterproductive.” Finally, the ES-Alert was activated, “the technicians decided,” in case the flood of the dam was coming.
Pradas does not believe that the notice was late and erroneous, since it took about half an hour since the technicians introduce the Hastsa text that is validated for subsequent shipment. Pradas confirms that he informed President Mazón but was not expected to make any decision, and it took time to send the alert because it was a “provisional” system and “in evidence.”
19,821 calls at 112
That day occurred 19,821 calls to 112, which “collapsed” preventing them from attending some calls; Calls that did not reach the Cecopi because they are found in different rooms in different buildings.
Pradas defends that, while the Generalitat reported through its social networks and press releases to the population, the performance of the CHJ was “negligent and absent”: “They put the focus on the Forata dam, they did not warn of the overflow of the lean, they did not warn of the ravine of the poyo until it had passed, they did not warn of their magnitude, they did not decree level 3 of the dam, they did not constitute a committee Permanent, they did not notice enough and there was no flow rate information about the Poyo ravine throughout the afternoon. ”
And also criticizes Aemet’s performance, which “never reported 700 liters per square meter, as it really happened; the forecast failed loudly.”
On the causes of this catastrophe, it points to the absence of works in the ravines of the Poyo and La Saleta, “which had been stopped for years” and Pradas ensures that it unlocked in July 2024. and discharges the valuation of whether the assessment of national interest had declared themselves in other autonomous communities.
Salome Pradas concludes his statement explaining that he considers that he did “everything possible” and feels “not being able to do more” because he acted with the information that “had at that time” and the advice “that were given at that time.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
