Could better warnings have saved lives in Valencia?

In late October flash floods hit southern and eastern Spain killing at least 217 people. Emergency services are continuing to search for many more that still remain missing.

Due to the huge death toll, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said this was the worst natural disaster in Spain’s living memory.

Questions are being asked about how this could happen in a rich European country where public safety standards are usually high.

With experts saying climate change almost certainly had an impact on the intensity of the rainfall, is this a wake-up call for the whole of Europe to get prepared for the consequences of global warming?

Anger grows over Valencia’s emergency response

Flood victims are understandably angry about the events leading up to the flooding. They surrounded King Felipe VI on Sunday in the Valencian town of Paiporta, pelting him with mud. Beside him was Regional President for Valencia Carlos Mazón who was quickly evacuated when the crowd turned hostile.

The People’s Party (PP) politician has attracted much of the blame for the region’s lack of preparation as well as their poor response to the disaster. Much of the anger is focused on emergency warnings to citizens coming too late for them to evacuate.

In 2023, the centre-right regional government – made up of PP and Vox – dismantled a regional emergency unit set up by the previous administration which had yet to be fully implemented. Critics say a framework like this could have helped coordinate a response to the deadly flooding.

Spain’s Interior Ministry has placed the blame with the regional government, saying they are responsible for sending out warnings about possible flooding and other natural disasters. In defence, Mazón has said his government followed standard protocol as dictated by Spain’s central government.

National leader of PP Alberto Núñez Feijóo also questioned the information sent out by state meteorological agency AEMET.

“No one can make decisions based on information that may be accurate, inaccurate, or could be improved. Decisions are made based on the information provided to you at any given time,” he said.

Feijóo also complained that the prime minister’s administration hadn’t coordinated with the regional government.

Though an effective early alert would not have spared Valencia’s homes, vehicles and businesses, it may have saved some of the 200 lives lost in this severe weather event.

Were people warned about Valencia’s deadly flooding?

AEMET warned authorities and the public two days before the catastrophe occurred that there was a 70 per cent chance of torrential rain. At 7:30 am on the day of the disaster, it issued a red alert for severe weather.

Regional authorities didn’t send out texts warning residents to stay at home until just after 8pm. Many were already driving in their cars, out shopping or on the streets. Some were already stranded by rising floodwaters.

At around 6pm, the River Magro overflowed its banks sending a deluge of water and mud into the streets of the town of L’Alcudia. Mayor Andreu Salom told Spanish broadcaster RTVE that he and his fellow citizens received no warning of the looming tragedy.

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“I myself was on my way to check the river level at that moment because I had no information,” he said.

“With the local police patrol, we were on our way to check the river level when we had to turn around because a tsunami of water, mud, reeds and dirt was already entering into the town.”

Europe needs to be better prepared for climate threats

Ironically on the same day the people of Valencia were confronted with the deadly consequences of climate change, the European Commission presented a report on increasing civil and defence preparedness.

In her presentation, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the tragedy as “the dramatic reality of climate change”. She also emphasised that Europe must be prepared to deal with it.

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She said that being adequately prepared for major threats, including climate change, requires a “whole-government approach” which uses local, regional, national and EU resources. One of the challenges it outlines is ensuring that an effective public alert system is in place.

Alert systems are EU-mandated and every member state is required to have one under a 2018 directive. Creating an effective, timely alert system, however, is a lot harder than simply ensuring a text is sent out in time to warn people about what is happening.

Spain’s devastating flooding should serve as a wake-up call for Europe to assess how well these warnings actually work and what needs to be done to improve them. In von der Leyen’s own words, “Preparedness must become part of the underlying logic of all our actions”.

What does an effective warning system look like?

It is clear that for many in Valencia, the warning came too late and gave very little information about what to expect.

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For a warning system to be successful, information needs to be sent with enough time for people to respond. It also has to be provided in a way that is useful to the recipient and that recipient needs to understand it correctly and then know the right decision to make based on the risk.

“If any component of this fails, then people may be in danger and potentially lose their life,” says Lars Lowinski, a severe weather expert from Weather & Radar.

Lowinski adds that even with a perfect forecast and warning – and there was plenty of warning from AEMET beforehand – people need to be aware of the risk where they are.

“If the information they are given is not being understood because the recipients don’t have the reference or context, then that warning is of little value.”

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Trust is also important. People need to believe the information they are being sent and that relies on the agency providing it having a good track record of accurate, useful warnings.

Lowinski says this psychological component can’t be ignored and is the subject of ongoing research.

What went wrong in Valencia?

“What seems to have failed in a significant way was lead time,” Lowinski says, pointing out that the alert came from the regional civil protection agency after some villages in the southwest of the region were already experiencing flooding. Failure to understand the intensity of the event and underestimation of risk were also problems.

“Just providing numbers of rainfall totals (e.g. 400mm in 12 hours) without describing relevant impacts and possible measures to protect life and property is of little use unless one has some background in meteorology.”

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But predicting the exact impact is somewhat easier to do with purely weather-driven risks such as high winds, thunderstorms or snow. With heavy rain, there is both a weather-driven aspect and a hydrology-driven aspect – or what happens to the rain once it hits the ground.

River catchment areas, flat or hilly terrain, the type of soil, whether an area is built up or not. All of these factors can influence how severe a flood will be.

“An effective warning system would have to address all the above issues and would have to be flexible enough to allow constant adjustments and improvements,” Lowinski concludes.