The Ebro Dam is NOT flooding – It is just a drill

If you are in the vicinity of the Ebro Dam on Wednesday, do not be alarmed when the sirens sound today, as the Government of Cantabria and the State Administration, through the Hydrographic Confederation, will be testing the warning systems in a drill in which the coordinated response of all institutions will be trained in a risk situation in this environment.

This action is part of the detection and intervention strategies for the control of scenarios that may involve any type of vulnerability included in the Emergency Plan for this infrastructure, of which both entities are part of the Committee, the regional Government has reported.

On the one hand, the CHE, as the entity that owns the infrastructure, will activate the sirens of the dam’s acoustic warning system so that the population in the area of ​​influence of the reservoir can know its sound and check the coverage areas of the alert network. The dam’s public address systems will ring for several minutes, until the reception of signals from different points in the surrounding municipalities is effectively verified.

On the other hand, the Cantabrian Government, together with the Ministry of the Interior, will send a notice through the ES-ALERT system to the mobile phones of the population located in Las Rozas de Valdearroyo, Valdeprado del Río, Valderredible, and its areas of influence.

This tool allows the massive and immediate sending of alert notices to people who may be affected by an emergency or catastrophe, through notifications to their smartphones connected to the antennas included in the geographical area determined by the Civil Protection Service. and Emergencies of the Government of Cantabria.

The test will be carried out between 09:30 and 12:00, with the issuance of a notification similar to a text message, which will occupy the entire screen of the smartphone and will be accompanied by a beep and the vibration of the mobile phone, which will be activated. even if phones are silenced, locked, or in ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode, given the need to read in those cases where real risks occur.

The text will state that this is a simulation, indicating the testing of the system, and does not require any action to be taken by the user. Only, as a guarantee of reading the message, in order for it to be removed from the phone screen, the people who receive it must press the ‘Accept’ button.

In cases in which these communications are given as a result of real emergency situations, the notification will include information on the type of risk that motivates the sending of the alert, its possible consequences and, in those cases where it is necessary, advice. the actions to be carried out by the affected population.

Furthermore, in the drill, communications will be trained between the entity that owns the dam, in this case the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, the competent bodies in matters of Civil Protection and the 112 Emergency Attention Centres of Cantabria and Castilla y León, the Provincial Council of Burgos and the Government Delegations of both Autonomous Communities.