- The document aims to establish a chain of command to hierarchically structure the response to phenomena such as DANA
17/11/2021 – The San Fulgencio Town Council, in an extraordinary meeting, on Wednesday morning approved the Municipal Flood Risk Action Plan for the town. As indicated by the mayor of the municipality and head of Public Safety, José Sampere, “it is essential for a municipality to have this document, which aims to create a protocol of actions and distribute the tasks to be carried out by the different agencies and devices in case of emergency”. In this way, “we can offer a faster and more efficient response in situations of flooding, such as those we unfortunately suffered in September 2019 due to the DANA”, added the mayor.
The Municipal Action Plan for Flood Risk (PAMRI) forms part, together with the Municipal Action Plan for Seismic Risk (PAMRS), of the Municipal Territorial Emergency Plan (PTEM). The document “includes the geographical and general characteristics of the municipality, with the aim of detecting weak points and vulnerabilities, as well as the means and resources that could be used”, explained Sampere.
It also establishes a command and organisation body, called CECOPAL (Centro de Coordinación Operativa Municipal), which is responsible for specifying the tasks to be carried out during floods etc. This body, headed by the mayor, would be located in the Local Police Headquarters, and would be made up of an advisory committee, an information office and a communications centre.
The plan has been drafted by a senior technician in emergency coordination, hired by the Consistory last year through the EMCORP employment programme of the Conselleria de Economía Sostenible and the Servicio Valenciano de Empleo y Formación, to draw up the emergency plans of 23 municipalities in the Vega Baja. This action corresponds to one of the actions included in the ‘Vega Renhace’ Plan of the Generalitat Valenciana for the prevention of emergencies related to flooding in the region.
José Sampere has expressed the importance of having this document, since “San Fulgencio is a municipality which, due to its geographical characteristics and the extensive network of irrigation channels and ditches it has, is prone to these phenomena”.
The mayor also thanked the Valencian government for its help, which with the implementation of the actions reflected in the Vega Renhace Plan “will help to protect both the people of San Fulgencio and the people of the region from having to suffer floods of this magnitude again”.
