On Monday, the congressional committee investigating the management of the October 29, 2024, flash flood (dana) in Valencia, which resulted in 230 fatalities, will question the former head of the Provincial Firefighters Consortium, José Miguel Basset, and the driver of former president Carlos Mazón, Ernesto Serra Morant. Basset stated before the judge that he did not learn of the withdrawal of personnel from the Barranco del Poyo until days later and that, at 6:13 PM, he proposed an alert message for the population to stay home, without anyone considering it a lockdown.
Alert systems and geolocation in emergencies 📡
The management of the flash flood highlights failures in early warning protocols. An effective system should integrate real-time meteorological data with mobile geolocation to send push notifications to risk areas, without relying on slow human decisions. The ES-Alert technology, used in other countries, allows sending mass messages without saturating networks. In this case, Basset's proposal at 6:13 PM was not activated, suggesting that coordination between command centers and digital platforms failed, prioritizing internal communications over citizen safety.
The lockdown no one wanted to call a lockdown 🏠
Basset suggested that people stay home, but no one labeled it a lockdown. Perhaps they feared it would sound like an authoritarian measure or an episode of Black Mirror. After all, why warn if you then have to manage panic or, worse yet, have people realize that their mobile phones are good for something more than watching memes. In the end, the alert message arrived when the water had already done its work, proving that bureaucracy can be deadlier than a cold drop.