The Valencian regional government has organised a total of 664 personnel and 176 vehicles that will be in charge of facilitating road accessibility and providing assistance to the 204 municipalities of the Valencian territory with medium or high risk of being cut off by the snow.
The regional secretary for Security and Emergencies, José María Ángel, and the general director of Public Works, Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Roser Obrer, have presented the Generalitat’s device to deal with the snowfalls that may occur this winter.
Thus, José María Ángel has valued the role of the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response “in coordinating the media of all the administrations present in the Valencian Community to reduce the problems that snow may cause in many municipalities of the Valencian Community “.
In fact, he stressed that “from the Emergency Coordination Centre the Snowfall Campaign Circular has already been sent to all municipalities, which includes the procedure for action, the campaign media and alternative communication systems to avoid isolation of people, especially those who may have relief difficulties “.
For its part, the general director of Public Works has explained that each zone of conservation of roads with risk of snowfall has the traditional operating means made up of a total of 16 snow ploughs in the Community and around 250 tons of flux, as well as a scalable add-on operation that allows you to add additional media. In addition, equipment for the production of brine to preventively treat the roads.
It has also indicated that the teams of the Department have cleaning schedules established in coordination with local administrations and firefighters consortiums so that the entire network can be enabled in a few hours, with special attention to low traffic interior roads where the plates of ice produce greater risk. The official meteorological monitoring is completed with other networks, such as that of the Ministry itself, which allows obtaining information closer to the road environment, as well as with the network of cameras in sensitive areas.
For this campaign there are, among all the administrations, 176 vehicles of which 99 are snow ploughs. This year the Generalitat will acquire three new shovels that will cover the areas of Sinarcas, Chelva and Titaguas, with which the figure will increase throughout the campaign to 102. In addition, another 77 auxiliary vehicles have been activated that were already deployed in a preventive manner ago a few weeks to act before the first episode of snowfall.
A total of 664 professionals will act preventively and to clear the roads and accesses of the municipalities with the highest risk of being isolated. Of these, 365 personnel belong to the Generalitat’s Forest Fire Service; 84 to the Department of Territorial Policy and Public Works and 215 to the different services of the provincial councils – the highway brigades in the case of Alicante and Valencia and the fire brigades in Castellón. If extraordinary storms were to be faced, they would also be reinforced with resources from other areas.
Of the 204 municipalities likely to be isolated by snow, 82 present a high risk and 122 a medium risk. Most of them belong to the province of Castellón, which includes 42 towns that are located at an elevation higher than 800 meters above sea level, 42 are in Castellón, 26 are in Valencia and 14 are in Alicante.
The intervention protocols and the resources assigned are regulated in the Procedure for Action against Snowfalls, which is updated every winter and which specifies what corresponds to each administration and its coordination.
It also establishes the constitution of the Roads Coordination Centre, which is the body in charge of managing the different road cleaning tasks. It includes representatives of the different administrations with road competencies (General State Administration, Autonomous Administration and county councils) and provides for the integration of other basic units (Intervention, Sanitary, Supply) if the emergency requires it.
One of the most important actions of essential resources during snowfalls is to avoid isolation, which is why the Action Procedure for this risk establishes cleaning routes and storage points for salt and brine. 56 cleaning routes have been planned for the entire Valencian Community (17 in Alicante, 14 in Valencia and 25 in Castellón) and 42 storage points for salt and brine (8, 8 and 26 respectively).
At an organizational level, the Generalitat’s Mobility Services Management Centre continuously monitors and the snow ploughs are equipped with a real-time communication system of their positioning. Likewise, the protocol is updated every year to establish certain traffic cuts at the accesses to the most severe winter spots, even before the onset of precipitation, when a red-level pre-emergency is planned. In this way, an attempt is made to minimize the problems of blocking the roads.
Another tool so that all people with relief needs can be attended to is the supply, by the Valencian Agency for Safety and Emergency Response, of portable radio stations from the Comdes Network. This equipment has been sent to all municipalities that do not have a Local Police to ensure communications with the 1 · 1 · 2 of the Valencian Community.
The road brigades in the case of the Alicante and València councils and the Castellón Firefighters Consortium in this province are responsible for cleaning the roads.
The Generalitat Fire and Forest Fire Service are also involved in the operation of cleaning roads and signalling roadblocks. In the case of the province of Castellón, they take charge of 9 of the 25 cleaning itineraries established throughout the province, dedicating themselves to the secondary network highways, roads and rural tracks.
