"We weren't sure that a mobile alert would reach the entire population."

BarcelonaWith the blackout The power cuts arrived. Service coverage vanished. Thousands of people were trapped, especially on trains and in elevators. Traffic lights went dark, with the risk of a collision at any intersection. And at Fire Brigade headquarters, fear quickly began to emerge: "The question was: 'Are people calling us? Are calls coming in to 112?'" says David Borrell, Chief Inspector of the Generalitat Fire Brigade. He admits that "certainly" some calls didn't come in, but they have no evidence of any risky situations being missed. The Deputy Director of Civil Protection, Imma Solé, agrees, stating that a widespread inability to contact the emergency line was not detected.

It was 12:33 p.m. when the power supply went out, and the priority, says Borrell, was to avoid an "operational collapse." That means the fire vehicles had fuel, communications were working, and the generators were working. At the Lleida fire station, following this instruction, they started the generator. "It wasn't working," explains Marc Monturiol, a fire officer from that region. Improvised solutions were invented that only provided power to the station for half an hour, until they could find mechanics to fix the alternative power supply. The Rescat network, the means by which emergency services communicate, was working almost everywhere in Catalonia, with only a few errors in some regions, agree Borrell and Solé. However, calls could only be made from the stations and vehicles. "We were afraid that if it lasted many hours, the internal network wouldn't have held up," admits Borrell.

A call to 112 doesn't work like any other. If there's some coverage where you are from any company, even if it's not yours, the call will go through. According to Civil Protection, the calls were coming in, but without "absolute certainty" that all of them were received. It was difficult to transfer them directly to the Fire Department or Mossos d'Esquadra so they could speak with the victim. Should blackouts like Monday's force us to rethink the way citizens contact emergencies? "We have to look at it, we have to find as many ways as possible to disseminate it," admits Solé. And he also accepts that we need to rethink (and perhaps go back) the way Civil Protection contacts the population. He speaks of "door-to-door" and the reinstatement of megaphones.

A delicate debate

As the hours passed, a delicate debate erupted at Procicat. Should an alert be sent to cell phones? "We considered it," says Solé, specifying that this tool (which sends a shrill signal accompanied by a message) "is designed to disseminate specific instructions because physical integrity is at risk." Civil Protection was unclear about what instructions they should send, and they also didn't want to alarm or confuse the population.

There are other reasons why the alert wasn't issued. "We weren't sure it would reach the entire population," Solé explains. These signals are sent to a group of antennas that broadcast a message in their coverage area, but it is only received (unlike calls to 112) if your company has one. And there's a third reason, surely the most delicate of all: "If we sent an alert to all the antennas in the country, we didn't know how they would respond at that moment," says Solé. That is, if they "attacked" an already weakened network, they would also suffer the downtime of 112 and the entire emergency system.

The firefighters were also unable to determine which areas had coverage and which didn't. Staff were reinforced, and all volunteer fire stations opened. Central services established priorities, which the regional firefighters followed. It was a challenge. This "dual" system had been applied in fires and other emergencies, but not in one that affected the entire country. It had been a year since the force had mobilized so many personnel. After ensuring they could work, the priority was rescuing people: 2,200 evacuees on trains, more than 700 in elevators, around twenty poisoned by generators... "People stopped us on the street asking for rescues," explains Monturiol.

At 12:33 p.m., Solé's first thought was nuclear and chemical plants and hospitals. Environmental Quality and the firefighters carried out constant monitoring, and, holding their breath, at no time was a leak detected. Civil Protection has plans in place due to the lack of supply. It has been implemented due to transport strikes and the drought, but they've never seen anything like it. And they admit they'll have to learn. Solé affirms that fuel supply can be improved to maintain electricity in certain areas, and that it can be done more "efficiently." "We'll have time to see what we might need to improve," the Fire Chief affirms.

Changing Priorities

The vast majority of the calls (80%) received on Monday by 112 were for people trapped. Within minutes, the Mossos d'Esquadra's priorities changed 180 degrees. There was one hour left until the blackout when, in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona, thieves robbed a tourist of a watch worth up to 80,000 euros. One of the perpetrators had dropped his cell phone; the police had him and were searching for them. But at 12:33 p.m., the instruction was to go to the metro to evacuate trapped people. Hours and hours passed before some were able to get off the stopped trains. "Unfortunately, we have to triage based on risk," laments Monturiol.

He was the protagonist of one of the most complicated moments of the afternoon: the evacuation of nearly 600 passengers from an Avlo train stopped in Les Garrigues. The protocol, set by the operators, "is to wait," maintains the Fire Department officer. Waiting for a tugboat to arrive, but it never arrived. It was a difficult mountainous area, and the train was filled with elderly and disabled passengers. One passenger broke his kneecap while getting off the train. Finally, at 8 p.m., the train was declared evacuated.

Twenty minutes later, in Ciutat Vella, a thief snatched a €45,000 watch from a tourist, while another thief grabbed him by the neck. One of the two was arrested. The power was returning, and the restoration process was completed by 3:00 a.m. The night was peaceful, with no looting or disturbances. "Just like any other Monday," police sources said. And this Tuesday, according to government sources, the electricity companies had fewer incidents than on a normal day.