The devastating news and images that have reached us incessantly from the autonomous communities severely affected by the recent dana reminds us that crises are inevitable and that, no matter how hard we try to prevent them, they will always happen, in one way or another.

A crisis, by definition, is an event that occurs unexpectedly, disrupts the normal status generating devastating consequences and requires extraordinary resources to deal with it. The characteristics that turn an emergency into a crisis are the magnitude and unexpectedness of a crisis status.

For all of these reasons, and based on the prestigious book Managing the Unexpected by Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, I consider it important to reflect on the management of the recent dana. This book defines the five principles that allow to effectively manage unexpected situations such as this catastrophe.

First principle: concern for the ruling
The first is concern for failure. It is necessary to be constantly on alert, monitoring the status, in order to anticipate any phenomenon that could trigger a crisis. Nowadays, we have sensors installed in the rivers that alert us of floods and thus foresee a possible flood.

In the same way, current meteorological models help us to anticipate with great precision extreme weather phenomena that can lead to a crisis. In addition, the ES-Alert early warning system for the population that was implemented in October 2022 in Spain allows us to alert society of the risk and give orders on the actions to be taken to ensure their safety.

However, for all these tools to be effective, the presence of human beings is still required in order to interpret the data and the results obtained and thus take the necessary measures. In the case of the dana, the technologies warned of an extreme status , but the warning to the population did not arrive early enough to take measures and avoid casualties.

Second principle: reluctance to simplify
Crises are complex events: it is difficult to predict where and when they will occur and how they will spread throughout the city or region. In addition, the high interconnectedness between critical infrastructures facilitates the spread of the event, affecting essential supplies such as energy, water, transportation and telecommunications, which further aggravates its impacts.

The torrential rains of the recent drought generated floods and torrents that affected critical services (telecommunications, energy and transportation), making it even more difficult to understand the magnitude of the crisis and the two-way communication between emergency services and citizens. When managing the event, the cascading effects that could be caused by torrential rains downstream and the impact on critical infrastructures were not taken into account.

Therefore, when implementing prevention measures, it is necessary to adopt systemic thinking thatallows us to visualize the cascading effects that affect interdependent systems and to establish containment measures, including redundant systems, such as redundant generators or networks that allow critical services to be maintained.

Third principle: sensitivity to operations
The third principle is "sensitivity to operations". It is necessary to ensure that all protocols and procedures are properly followed. The responsibilities and actions to be implemented by each agent in each status are defined in detail in the emergency action plans. However, sometimes crisis managers delay as long as possible before establishing maximum alert levels because such levels entail prohibitions in the daily life of citizens.

For its part, the public also plays an important role in complying with the recommendations and actions suggested by the emergency services. In the case of the dana, although the AEMET passed the notice to maximum level at 08:04 hours in the morning and the Hydrological Confederation of the Júcar issued several communications and notifications from 12:00 to 19:00 hours on the flows of the rivers, the alert to the citizens did not arrive until 20:00 hours.

Fourth principle: commitment to resilience
It is necessary to develop capacities that facilitate improvisation and adaptation to unknown situations, making decisions with little information and knowledge from status. Thus, in the case of the dana we have continuously seen how measures were improvised. Although improvisation entails making mistakes and having to rectify, it is important to make decisions about the problem in a coordinated manner in order to respond and recover as quickly as possible.

Fifth principle: deference to experts
It is important that those who have the knowledge on the potential problem can take the reins when it comes to establishing action measures. In the case of the Generalitat Valenciana, AEMET is the agency that warns of the meteorological phenomenon that may result in a catastrophe and the hydrological confederations have data of the river flows, but it is the responsibility of regional government -through civil protection and emergency managers-, to implement the necessary level of alert and communicate it to society.

These three entities are not under the same umbrella, which makes coordination and proper decision making difficult. In some autonomous communities such as the Basque Country, the meteorological agency EUSKALMET and the emergency service of the Basque Government (112) are under the same department, which facilitates the exchange of information and a better understanding of the severity of the status.

The crisis has already happened and now the urgent thing is to take measures for a prompt and adequate recovery of the affected territories. Economic, technical and infrastructural, organizational, social and environmental measures are necessary to ensure a prosperous future for these municipalities. Resilient regions are those that are able to learn and emerge stronger from a crisis.

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original.

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Leire Labaka Zubieta Professor of Tecnun-School of Engineering of the University of Navarra, University of Navarra, Spain 25.11.2024