DANA: alerts many can't disable and schools closed

Alerts many users can't turn off and a DANA that hasn't arrived yet

The DANA arrived first via mobile phones rather than the sky. Civil protection alerts went off from early morning, leaving red alert, schools closed and government offices halted in the Valencian Community. By mid-afternoon the toll was more notifications than water: some report that twelve hours after the first warning not a drop had fallen. The risk is real, the question is different. When the alert goes off in every episode, does it inform or just interrupt?

Why can't many users disable civil protection alerts?

According to several participants, the mass mobile alert system was born with an exit door: it could be silenced from settings or via an opt-out in the two major operating systems. That, they say, is over: current regulations require receiving the messages and recent versions don't offer a clean switch on the notifications screen. The technical route remains: on Android they can be removed via ADB and some factory layers still allow it; on iOS, civil protection pre-alerts can be disabled, but with presidential alerts there's no way.

The technical detail is open. Some maintain that newer devices receive satellite alerts even with the phone in airplane mode; those who have tried it with an iPhone 17 Pro assure that not a single one has come through all year. Underneath lurks a suspicion expressed by some participants: the message arrives where the user doesn't want it, and that, they say, is no longer information, it's imposition.

Red alert with barely a little rain at 18:30

By 18:30 some water had fallen and little more. The protocol went off anyway: red alert, class suspensions and government offices closed, and for the next day orange alert with centres not opening. As another participant summarises, decades of torrential rains in Valencia with hardly any warnings have now become, in every episode, a preventive shutdown. Some recall a warning at 1 a.m. last month for heavy rain that, in their view, didn't justify waking anyone.

At the other extreme, memory plays tricks. A ground-floor resident remembers 2008: the blocked terrace, buckets of water to the toilet to prevent flooding and 200 litres per square metre falling for hours. He spent years waking up startled every time he heard rain. Today, he says, he asks about that and no one remembers.

Over-warning or under-warning? The underlying debate

The closures have a cost: schools, high schools and government offices halted today and tomorrow, with the alert already downgraded to orange. Some recall that for years it was criticised that the bell wasn't rung and now argue it's rung daily, with the feeling of an inflated warning. Other participants maintain that the mechanism is the same as during the pandemic to keep the population in permanent tension.

In between are the episodes that do matter. Some antiestéticar that dam gates will open without warning, others reproach that infrastructure hasn't been built in years and others maintain that aid would take six days. Meanwhile, in the Ribera Alta the thunder is heard increasingly farther away.

The forecast, with all reservations: the next warning will sound just as loud and it will be the rain that decides if it was justified. Until the system distinguishes between preventive warning and real emergency, the discussion won't close. With mobile in hand and the sky open, next time we'll know live.