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Former Requena Mayor Declares Dana Did Not Cause Victims Due to Public Warning

Rocío Cortés testifies in the DANA management case, highlighting municipal preventive measures to avoid deaths and injuries.

Generic image of a municipal building with Mediterranean architecture.
IA

Generic image of a municipal building with Mediterranean architecture.

Former Requena Mayor Rocío Cortés has testified as a witness before the judge investigating the DANA management, stating that the municipality suffered no fatalities or injuries thanks to prior public warnings.

Rocío Cortés, who was the mayor of Requena on October 29, 2024, testified this Monday as a witness in the Catarroja courts. The magistrate investigating the DANA management case summoned the former PP mayor to clarify the circumstances surrounding the torrential rainfall episode that caused 230 deaths in the province of Valencia. Requena was one of the first locations to suffer severe flooding, and residents of its hamlets became isolated.
According to sources familiar with the testimony, Cortés explained that the City Council began preparing for the storm the night before. By the early morning of October 29th, the intensity expected for midday was already foreseen, leading to the decision to suspend classes before dawn to prevent student mobility. Requena, the largest municipality in the Valencian Community with 25 hamlets, was a pioneer in adopting this measure. At 06:53 AM, education inspectors were contacted, and by 07:20 AM, classes were suspended, with orange and yellow alerts issued by Emergencies.
The former mayor detailed that the council sent four warning messages to the public. The first, at 07:52 AM, informed about the school closure and provided recommendations. Additional radio announcements were made at 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM, and at 1:25 PM, residents were urged not to go outside. Even companies in the industrial park were contacted to send workers home, although the Generalitat's ES-Alert arrived later, when the damage was already irreversible.
Cortés recounted that during the morning, they monitored the Magro river ravine and decided to build a dike. By 1:00 PM, a Cecopal (Local Operational Coordination Center) had already been established, four hours before the central Cecopi was convened. "I felt all day that we were ahead of everything," she stated, although she noted that they received "no instructions" from the Emergency Coordination Center beyond confirmation that resources would be provided.
In the afternoon, as the situation worsened, the Civil Guard advised contacting the Military Emergencies Unit (UME). The former mayor spoke for the first time with former councilor Salomé Pradas at 3:17 PM to convey the lack of resources. By 3:30 PM, the municipal theater had been set up as a shelter. Cortés also mentioned speaking with her Utiel counterpart, Ricardo Gabaldón, before communications were cut, and expressed concern for the hamlets, particularly Casas del Río, due to the fury of the Cabriol River.

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