The Minister of the Interior admits that it is possible and desirable to improve the civil protection alert system for the population when adverse events occur, such as bad weather, the same occurs with the declaration of contingency.
In an interview with Público and Rádio Renascença, José Luís Carneiro says that the Government had already drawn “this conclusion from the fires last summer”, admitting that it is increasingly possible, specifically with the use of artificial intelligence, to be able to “direct plus the type of message.
“For example, the determination of the alert situation does not apply in the same way in all the territories of the country,” he exemplified.
Last week, regarding the heavy rains and floods that they caused in Greater Lisbon, several meteorologists criticized the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), for considering the activation of the orange alert due to bad weather late.
For his part, the president of ANEPC, Duarte da Costa, returned the criticism, assuring that the system worked and that there were several alerts before the storm that caused chaos in the Lisbon region. However, only this week, with the continuation of the bad weather, Civil Protection sent SMS to the population.
Consulted in this regard, the minister replied: “Given the notices that were issued by the IPMA, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority issued their notices, which are communicated to the municipal civil protection authorities.”
“From a technical point of view, a minimum time is needed so that the alerts can be directed to the population for certain territories, for certain regions. This is done for the purpose of sending SMS,” he added.
The transition from the yellow notice to the orange notice – he insisted – “was not in sufficient time for it to be activated for specific municipal territories.”
“For this very reason, what Civil Protection conveys to me is that a press conference was held at 8:00 p.m., when it was understood that, after all, the meteorological phenomenon in question went beyond what was the notice that had been given. Given done, if I’m not mistaken, around 11:00, ”he adds.
Regarding the possibility of improving the system, he mentions that the same occurs with the declaration of contingency.
“We had already decided, at the time of the post-summer fires, September/October, on the need to use artificial intelligence in directing this type of information, and it is an improvement that civil protection systems must make,” he says. .
The intense and persistent rain that fell on Tuesday caused more than 3,000 events, including floods, falling trees and roadblocks, mainly affecting the districts of Lisbon, Setúbal, Portalegre and Santarém.
In total, there are 83 displaced people, according to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), and the bad weather also caused the cutting and conditioning of roads and railways, which have been reestablished.
On Wednesday, starting at 2:00 p.m., Civil Protection reduced the alert level from orange (the second most serious on a scale of four) to yellow in all districts of mainland Portugal due to improved weather conditions, but warned that could “sporadic flooding events” still occur.
The yellow alert (the third on the scale) means a moderate degree of seriousness, with the possibility of occurrence of phenomena that, although not rare, may represent potential damage to people and property.
ANEPC has four special alert states (blue, yellow, orange and red), which condition the reinforcement of surveillance and increase the degree of availability of the device.
Source: Observadora
