Pilar Bernabé: "It would have been worse if the State had declared a national emergency for the dana"

ValenciaThe delegate of the Spanish government in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, stated this Monday that it would have been counterproductive for the State to have declared a national emergency and taken over the management of the emergency on the day of the storm in the Valencian Community against the will of the Generalitat. She said this this Monday in the investigation commission of the Congress of Deputies on the catastrophe.

Bernabé reaffirmed a position she has defended since October 2024. According to this criterion, and despite the inaction of the Generalitat, taking over the management of the emergency without the Valencian government having requested it would have generated more paralysis, especially with so little time. "Asking for State intervention would have been worse; I don't know what would have happened and what role the Generalitat would have played," insisted the delegate, who highlighted that the regional government is the administration deployed in the territory and that all experts consulted by the State have assessed that a conflict of competencies at that time would have been detrimental.

In response to questions from progressive formations, the socialist leader also focused on the inaction of the Valencian government, which she criticized for not holding any preparatory meetings before the arrival of the storm, even though the Flood Plan of the Valencian Country dictates it and it had been done in previous situations, for example, in 2022 and 2023. In this regard, she complained that the pre-emergency situation had been decreed five days earlier.

One of the high-ranking officials investigated for leaking the audio to Aemet denies having done soRegarding the omission of the Poio ravine in the Cecopi, she argued that until 7 p.m. only the Forata dam was discussed because only the Spanish government through the Hydrographic Confederation of the Júcar provided information. The other party did not provide it. "The Generalitat did not provide information on the more than 11,000 calls to 112 they had received up to that point. They did not provide information on the pluviometric analyses they should have done... If four days ago I found out that at 6 p.m. members of the Cecopi already knew that the ravine had overflowed and they said nothing, in the Cecopi, the first one to talk about the overflow [of the Poio ravine] is me," she summarized.

One of the senior officials investigated for leaking the audio to Aemet denies having done so

After the appearance of Pilar Bernabé in Congress, this afternoon it was the turn of the former Director General of Emergencies of the Generalitat Valenciana, Alberto Martín Moratilla. He is one of the two senior officials in the Emergencies leadership who, according to the statement of the deputy director, Jorge Suárez, allegedly participated in the leakage and manipulation of a phone call between this department and an Aemet employee on the day of the storm that is being judicially investigated. Martín Moratilla has repeatedly denied having done so: "Never, in my life, have I had access to this recording, nor do I have keys to access it." And he added that "the first time" he heard the audio was "through social networks and the press." "I have absolutely nothing to do with these recordings," he insisted.

In the leaked audio fragment, it could be heard how the technicians downplayed the importance of the alerts issued for the storm. Despite this, the complete recording was later disseminated, in which it was warned that the meteorological situation would worsen in the afternoon, as it did.