IPMA president rejects belated flood risk warning in Lisbon

The president of the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), Miguel Miranda, on Tuesday in Parliament rejected the allegation of a belated flood warning that occurred on December 7 in the Lisbon area.

“The forecast we made was the best we could make. We had contacts that we had to have,” said Miguel Miranda, heard this afternoon in the Assembly of the Republic by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees regarding the floods caused by the storm that took place in the Lisbon metropolitan area on December 7 last year at the request of the Chega parliamentary group.

Starting with a temporary retrospective, the IPMA spokesman explained that the first warning (yellow) was issued on December 6, and on that day there was “contact with civil protection and the city council of Lisbon”.

“The next day (the day the flood occurred) an orange warning was issued in the morning and new contact was made with civil protection and the Lisbon city council,” he pointed out, admitting that the IPMA expected it “to rain”. a lot, but not that it was raining.

Miguel Miranda explained that the change from orange to red warning level takes place at 22:26, ​​”in an already reactive situation”, denying, however, IPMA’s responsibility for the inefficiency of the civil protection authorities.

“If you ask me if we predicted exactly what happened, I will say no. Now we can’t just solve problems when there are red flags. red. We try to make red flags happen in a situation close to disaster,” he said.

In this sense, the IPMA president argued that civil protection authorities should carry out disaster prevention activities “long before” red warnings are issued, namely the closure of tunnels in cities.

“The orange notice really needs to be respected, and so does the yellow one. As we could see, things were already going well on December 13,” he reasoned, believing that it was a matter of “preparation” and advocating the need to “do our best.” cities are more resilient to this kind of phenomena.”

When asked by deputies about any changes that have taken place in the work of IPMA after these floods, Miguel Miranda indicated that “the transfer of internal communications is now faster.”

In this regard, Secretary of State for Civil Protection Patricia Gaspar and President of the National Office for Emergency and Civil Protection (ANEPC) Duarte da Costa were also heard in Parliament this afternoon.

Patricia Gaspard informed the deputies that the Government is working on a new system for alerting the population about civil protection in the event of adverse events, such as bad weather or rural fires.

The official explained that the government had begun work on this new system “before this episode” of flooding in the Lisbon area, establishing “the first preliminary contacts with organizations that have the capacity to develop systems of this type.”

The ANEPC President clarified to the deputies that the system of preventive SMS messages for rural fires, created in 2018, “is not a solution for everything” and has a “delay of five hours.”

Duarte Costa emphasized that preventive SMS messages reach the population “two to three hours after ANEPC transmits information to mobile operators.”

The issue of SMS warnings to the population on the night of December 7, which were not sent by ANEPC, was raised by some opposition parties, namely Chega, PSP and Bloco de Esquerda.

On 7, 8, 12 and 13 December, heavy rains caused several floods in the Lisbon area, resulting in the closure of roads, tunnels and access to transport stations, as well as damage to commercial facilities, homes and vehicles, resulting in high losses in several municipalities of the metropolitan area.

In the city of Alges, in the municipality of Oeiras, a woman died, along with dozens of displaced people.