On the morning of Thursday the 7th, the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, wandered between phone calls through the improvised command post of Paiporta. His face was contorted. Eight days ago, ground zero of the Dana had woken up to the tragic consequences of the disaster that has left at least 214 dead and dozens missing. On October 29, Mazón had appeared at Cecopi, the body that coordinates emergencies, two hours after the meeting began and after. After seven in the afternoon, the mayor of Paiporta telephoned the Government delegate. “Many people are dying,” cried Maribel Albalat. The massive alert on the population’s cell phones was not launched until 8:11 p.m., when they were already up to their necks in water. Eight days later, Mazón looked into the eyes of the mayor, the two of them sitting at a table in the command post while they supervised the rescue and reconstruction operation.
“The cell phone alert came when we were drowning,” Albalat lamented in his City Hall office, converted into an operations center for what many describe as a “war scenario,” minutes before his meeting with the president. In these 11 days of locating and rescuing bodies, lists of missing persons, destroyed families and countless material damages, Mazón has given multiple versions, told half-truths and has fallen into contradictions to cover up an unfortunate management of the dana. “We were warning for days before”, “we took a while to send the alert because we followed the protocols” or “they did not notify us in time” have been some of the arguments with which the popular have wanted to justify the rulings. After 11 days, his credibility has been damaged.
The “unknown” mobile alert system. The ES-Alert system is a technology for sending geolocated emergency notifications. It was launched in 2022. The thunderous message was launched in September 2023 in the Community of Madrid due to the arrival of a dana. Then, criticism intensified against the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) for declaring a red alert that did not deliver what it anticipated. In the Valencian Community, the Generalitat took more than 12 hours to send the message since the first red alert was declared, eight since the first overflows occurred and six since the first missing person was reported. Mazón argued that the protocols were followed. The counselor of the branch, Salomé Pradas, said days later that despite the fact that she is responsible for Emergencies and although this year’s flood prevention circular from her own administration indicates that it has been active “since this year.” Even so, the counselor assured: “It is not in our regional plans.”
Deleted message. Shortly after one in the afternoon on the 29th, Mazón spoke about Aemet’s notices after an event on his official and public agenda. In it he stated that the forecasts indicated that the storm would subside at six in the afternoon. That message on social network X later disappeared. Days later he claimed that it was to avoid causing confusion.
The notices from the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) that according to Mazón arrived late and the counselor requested them verbally, not only by email. Every time Carlos Mazón talks about the CHJ notices he offers a different version. The last one was given this Saturday when he once again pointed to this institution and said that the crucial moment was at seven in the afternoon on the 29th (shortly before he joined Cecopi). According to the Valencian president, it is at that moment when the rains become the flood, when a “hydrographic revolution” occurs. According to Mazón, two different days were lived in one: before seven and after.
The reality is quite far from this statement. The Confederation sent up to four emails before that time – although two of them were to communicate the decrease in the flow in the Poyo ravine and only at 6:43 pm did they warn that it had risen brutally. The information on the flows, in any case, is offered on the Confederation website and is automatically updated every five minutes. And, between ten in the morning and one in the afternoon, Valencian public television did a monograph on the floods. Not about the rains, but about the floods that were already flooding dozens of towns. At seven in the afternoon they were already missing.
The Interior Minister’s complaint about the CHJ is that they sent the information by emailnot verbally. The circular on flood prevention written by your department states that “the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat, which is a 24-hour service, has updated the operation for the flood campaign and communication is permanently maintained with the hydrographic confederations of the Júcar, Segura and Ebro in relation to the monitoring of flows and the process that leads to the declaration of an emergency situation.” It had never before required the formula to be varied. Furthermore, as Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment, explained this Wednesday in Congress, as soon as the Cecopi meeting began, the president of the CHJ, Miguel Polo, reported on the critical situation of the Forata reservoir.
The alerts and the Aemet. President Mazón changed his story again this Saturday. He no longer mentioned Aemet as responsible for not having notified of the damage. Days ago he maintained that the Generalitat itself had warned several days before the approaching episode, as many as Aemet which, since Thursday the 24th, had warned of the arrival of torrential rains. Mazón also tried to attribute to the institutions dependent on the Government the ability to send alerts, when only the Emergency Service of the Generalitat has jurisdiction over these, which does so based on meteorological information. According to an Emergency circular, “the contact protocol with the prediction service of the State Meteorological Agency for the adjustment of pre-emergencies that derive from the meteorological forecast of rains, storms and sea states” had been reviewed.
The reproaches for telematic assistance. The counselor in charge of Emergencies reproached both the Government delegate and the CHJ representatives for not being present at the Cecopi meeting, which they joined electronically at five o’clock, two hours before Carlos Mazón did so. The Special Flood Plan of the Valencian Community states: “Normally, the Aemet representative will carry out his advisory functions from his own work center. In the case of the representatives of the Hydrographic Confederations, their presence at Cecopi will also be optional as long as in the emergency a Dam Emergency Plan has not been activated”, a stage that did not occur.
Food in the restaurant. The official agenda of president That Tuesday the 29th ended at 1:45 p.m. After days of comings and goings in the version about where he was in those critical hours, Mazón responded to EL PAÍS from the command post. “I was at a work lunch, next to the office,” he said, a few meters from the mayor of Paiporta, nervously. Sources from his cabinet pointed out that, when Cecopi started, “he was in the Palau de la Generalitat working and informed punctually.” But, at least until six in the afternoon, —and not in the Palau—, according to the restaurant owner. There he had lunch with À Punt journalist Maribel Vilaplana, as she confirmed. He held a meeting for three hours to offer him the direction of Valencian public television.
EMU application. The streets of ground zero of the dana are today a coming and going of troops from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) and the Army, in an unprecedented deployment. Tank trucks, military trailers and members of the Army, shovel in hand, mix with volunteers, neighbors and other security forces in the rescue and cleanup efforts. But, at least until Sunday, residents denounced the lack of resources and displaced means, accumulating a bag of anger and mud that led to . The UME troops began to act on Tuesday the 29th. In another twist on the assumption of responsibilities, the counselor responsible for Emergencies denied on Thursday that the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, offered her the deployment of the UME during the day in which the cold drop devastated Valencia. That lie had very short legs: hours later, TVE broadcast the fragment of a recording it had made that day in which Pradas and his team could be seen meeting in the morning. Furthermore, the counselor could be heard saying: “The UME, which has made itself available to travel there…”. The head of UME, General Javier Marcos, also replied to Mazón, who had assured that not enough troops had been sent and that, once their presence was requested, the Army should send all the resources it considered necessary without the need for the autonomous administration requested them. “I can have 1,000 soldiers at the door, but I cannot enter until the emergency director authorizes me,” Marcos stressed about the powers attributed to the Generalitat, which had not requested such a volume.
Feijóo, the PP and the state of emergency. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and Mazón appeared together two days after the dana, when the head of the opposition lit the first fuse of the fire against the Government, blaming entities dependent on the central Executive for not having warned in time. Both the popular leader and the Valencian baron have joined forces against the common—and staunch—enemy, Pedro Sánchez. But their speeches diverge on one point: the declaration of the national emergency. , in an institutional appearance at the Genoa headquarters, said declaration, which would wrest control of crisis management from the Generalitat. In Valencia, Mazón has thrown the ball away to avoid commenting on Feijóo’s idea.
In the Palau de la Generalitat, PP sources speak privately of a tense relationship between Feijóo and Mazón, which supposedly cracked even more due to different points of view on the national emergency. And they blame the string of justifications, which has been growing like a chain of wrists matryoshka, to the unrest of president, aware of not having adopted all preventive measures. Especially regarding the mobile alert. “He, deep down, knows that he was wrong,” they point out.
Calls from the Government delegate. Before him crescendo of the seriousness of the consequences of the damage and the exchange of accusations about whether or not Aemet or the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation had warned in a timely manner during the fateful day of the storm, both the president Mazon like the counselor In their various interventions, Pradas has emphasized the fact that the Government did not communicate the seriousness of the situation beyond emails or messages through social networks. A message that was cut short on Wednesday, when the SER revealed that the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, .
