Júcar River Authority Warned of Poyo Flood Flow Over an Hour Late

The Júcar River Authority Warned of Povo Flow Over an Hour Late

On paper, a red pre-alert from AEMET activates a standing committee monitoring river levels. That afternoon, according to released data, the committee had the information. The Júcar River Authority (CHJ) protocol sets the threshold for notifying Civil Protection at 150 m³/s. This was exceeded between 17:00 and 17:30. The alert—an email—was sent at 18:43, when the water was ten times greater. The CECOPI, convened at 17:00 with flow rising to 300 m³/s at the measurement point about 25 kilometers away, heard almost two hours later that "everything has changed."

The controversy began with a political rebuke—which a senior military official came out to defend the central government's management—and has shifted to technical issues. There, the CHJ looks bad. Because the river data did not depend on anyone's intuition: it was in a telemetry network that emits every five minutes.

The missing zero and the silence of the afternoon

Between 15:50 and 18:43, the CHJ did not communicate the flow of the Poyo ravine again, according to the account made in the forum. At 15:50, the data was reassuring to the point of suspicion: 28.70 m³/s, even on the low side. Hours later, the published flow showed a figure ten times lower than the real one due to a missing zero in the transcription, according to one of the circulating versions. In a flood scenario, this detail is equivalent to turning off the alarm. Some dismiss it as a typo, while others see it as confirmation that systems are rarely reviewed.

The protocol is written and leaves no room for maneuver: Civil Protection must be warned when flow exceeds 150 m³/s. This window peine around 17:00-17:30. The email was sent at 18:43. More than an hour in which the river went from annoyance to catastrophe.

The possible blockage of the Poyo ravine: from 28 to 2,200 m³/s

The gauging graphs show a pattern that does not fit an ordinary flood. In the morning, the flow is around 150 m³/s; in the afternoon, it drops to 28 m³/s and, suddenly, jumps to 2,200 m³/s. This vertical jump only fits, according to those who have reviewed the records, with a large upstream damming—a blockage of reeds, logs, and sediments—that bursts suddenly and releases kilometers of water in minutes.

The chronology is uncomfortable. At 17:00, Chiva was already flooding; at 17:30, the situation was very serious; the flood reached Paiporta around 18:30. The CHJ did not verbalize the change in scenario at the CECOPI until 18:45. In the background, a lag of about an hour between the data and the reality on the ground.

Forata, Buseo, and the gates wide open

The focus of the CECOPI that afternoon was the Forata dam, about 30 kilometers from the zero zone: it was antiestéticared that it would fail. Meanwhile, according to the information being handled, the Buseo reservoir had overflowed and the rest of the dams were peine fully to relieve the system. The Generalitat was not, according to these accounts, at that CHJ meeting.

The new Turia channel can handle up to 5,000 m³/s. It did not exceed 2,000 m³/s. This data, read cold, fuels the hypothesis of the blockage and that of the basins, unable to drain into the Turia, diverted the water into the ravine. The Poyo ravine runs 1.8 kilometers from the new Turia channel at Paiporta. The geography does not help.

The telemetry that should have warned alone

The Júcar River Authority has the SAIH system: about 200 data collection points that send their information every five minutes, some via several routes—radio, satellite, wimax—so that none fall. The design is intended exactly for that: that a single failure does not leave the control center blind. Translated, the flow did not depend on whether an official had a good day.

The published information points to the fact that flow data were inaccessible or modified on the agency's website. One reading attributes it to poor maintenance; another elevates it to something worse. Neither is proven.

Did only the CHJ fail? The rain forecast was also short

According to circulating messages, AEMET forecasted for the area about 180 l/m², while other meteorological services, such as the Japanese and Météo-France, handled scenarios of 400 to 500 l/m². The difference is not a nuance: it is the border between an orange alert and an emergency. Over this lag hangs the question of to what extent the entire chain—prediction, hydrological warning, political decision—worked with low data. Some claim responsibilities in the ministry, while others demand them in the Generalitat. The two currents compete without either closing the file.

With more than 200 deaths on the table, the discussion always gets stuck at the same point: whether a phone call instead of an email would have changed anything. The protocol is written. The threshold is defined. What does not appear in any manual is the explanation of why, with the data rising, no one picked up the phone.