The ravages caused by the DANA in Valencia have once again taken over the current affairs talk show at El Hormiguero this week. The program of Pablo Motos and his collaborators have focused on this occasion on the weather warnings issued by agencies such as the Aemet. “Is there something to improve in the alerts, are we doing them wrong?” the presenter asked his team.
The journalist Cristina Pardo was the first to speak. “I believe that has been an apprenticeship and it will be for all of us. We have seen in the last few hours that politicians have learned the lesson and there has been coordination between administrations, preventive alertsto the population to give them instructions on what was going to happen, what they had to do…. I believe that this is good news for everyone,” he said, referring to the management after the passage of the last DANA that has mainly affected Malaga.
Pardo has also said that the Valencia’s DANA “will suppose a learning experience for citizens. Before Valencia, you were told ‘red alert’, and maybe we didn’t take it as seriously as we have to take it. Unfortunately, if we could draw some conclusions from what happened that would help save lives in the future and help us take seriously the fact that alerts are dangerous…. I think we have to give very clear instructions to the population and the citizens will be up to the task, for sure,” he said.
The next to speak was Nuria Rocawho, in addition to stressing that a tragedy such as the one that occurred in Valencia will serve as a learning experience for politicians, also criticized the functioning of the public warning systems: “It is necessary to be very accurateI mean, I have the feeling that if we don’t change the way the alarms are given or the color of the alarms, and if we get it right… When it happens two or three times like today, when a maximum red alert is issued and it doesn’t rain, then in the end…. Of course, people will stop paying attentionwhich is what always happens to all of us,” justified the collaborator and presenter of The Rock.
It was at this point that Cristina Pardo interrupted his colleague to clarify the change that there may be in the warnings. “In these last hours, there has been a town of Cadiz that had a yellow alert, it was the only one, because the rest were orange alert. At 9 o’clock in the morning everyone has done normal life, and at 12 o’clock the alert has changed for the worse. I mean, meteorology is a changing thing“, he added.
In this sense, Pardo has valued that “it is better to be safe than sorry. Then, with time, we can all learn and establish severity within the alerts themselves,” said the also presenter of Better late.
Juan del Val, on the other hand, has agreed with Pardo that “it is better to err on the side of excess“. “Obviously, it has not rained these days the same as in Valencia two weeks ago, but maybe we are not lamenting fatalities in some of the towns because people have done what they had to do. Not only politicians, but also the citizens, who have stayed at home,” he said, before pointing out that, as Nuria Roca said, “we have to sharpen the shot” with the warnings.
“Let’s keep in mind that in some of the areas that were affected by the flooding it did not rain. That is why it is better to take precautions and ask people to stay at home, even though it may not rain,” said Cristina Pardo.