Thanks. I only switched on when I saw your posts. Do not normally have TV on.

Rosemary

I am not sure what has happened with queen but it appears she was hit in the face with what looks like a muddy stone and the are huddled around her. She is holding her face. But can't see neither can reporter

showing on

https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/dire...-lineales/24h/

Sanchez seems to get hit on the back by a large stick and then gets rushed to a car. The King , bravely, seems to ignore pleas to leave and keeps talking to people to calm them. The PP president of Valencia looks totally shocked and appears to be holding onto the back of the king!!.

I noticed that several times when the people around the king put their umbrellas up to protect him from the mud that was being thrown it was very clear that he told them to put them down. He was very good with the younger people who were arguing with him. He listened, spoke and listened again. I am not a royalist at all but was pleased to see the way that he was dealing with the situation. I did not see the politicians interacting at all but I may have missed that as I have not seen much.

Rosemary

Yes, the King showed a lot of bravery, especially as there appeared little or no security and he was being heckled and getting mud thrown at him. That takes guts!!

They're really stuck between a rock and a hard place in situations like this. If the Royals and top politicians don't turn up, they are accused of not caring, if they do turn up they get abused. Never an easy decision.

Likewise the sending of warning text messages. I don't know the specifics of what system the Spanish authorities use, but there are basic parameters which apply to all systems for this kind of mass warnings to mobiles. I used to be responsible for sending these alerts in Queensland (Australia) so around 6 million people n total, and its not as simple as just pressing a button. One has to be reasonably sure of the type of threat, time of arrival, likely severity - warn too soon and not have it eventuate, and one gets slammed for crying Wolf. Many events (I believe including this one) are extremely fast-developing and its nigh on impossible to predict their severity until its already started. Then you have to send it to a specific area, ensure the message is correctly worded (should you tell people to shelter in place/stay off the roads/evacuate - to where?) and even after that you are dependent on the speed at which the telecom companies can actually send out the message.
There is a limit on how many text messages can be sent per second (the limit depends on the network capability), if phones are off etc it will keep trying a certain number of times - which again clogs the network, towers may already be damaged by the event, which causes further issues in transmission. We learnt only through trial and error just how many messages to send at a time to avoid too much congestion - that alone slows up the speed of sending as you have to split the target area map into smaller chunks. In our early days we were often told to target vast areas all in one go - resulting in messages arriving several hours late or even on the next day. Its still an area of developing technology and is improving all the time, but there's a long way to go.
I really feel for the poor staff responsible for sending the texts for this event, I'm sure they did their best, as we all have done in similar situations, Even if one isn't directly impacted by the actual event, losing home, family etc, it still stays with you and at times like this you do go back over your own actions etc during similar events.

Sorry to go on a bit, but I'm aware some people like to know about this kind of stuff, and I've been following the news and this thread throughout.
Absolutely tragic.

this happened in 57 also almost the same date. Except then Valencia city flooded.
So they diverted the river. Built 2 big walls - with the south one lower than the north one...
Now, our village - alfafar and other southern suburbs are devastated....
500 military called in 2 days after.. ridiculous...

Aside of text messages as described above, are radio / TV warnings also broadcast?

I have been thru disasters before due to hurricanes or tornadoes and the really late emergency flash on our telephones when the water was already 20 cm high in the streets and no response for almost 2 days is a disgrace ....

this was not a text but a big warning on your telephone lock screen that had to be manually closed before entre to the telephone could be gained..
3 came - Valencia government - City government and from Madrid...
about 30-45 minutes to late...
An example - it is in Valencian
https://www.levante-emv.com/comunita...111322314.html

Floods are happening at the moment in Murcia according to N332.

Rosemary

Just received a red alert until midnight for heavy rain and a SMS from CITASANITAT to wear a mask and proper protection when outside and cleaning as the mud has germs in it here in Alfafar.....

Just keeping our fingers crossed for all of you.

You would think that people would have learned what not to do when the roads are flooded. The tragedy in Valencia has not taught some people, just seen a video on N332 showing a very stupid person driving straight into the flood. I despair.

Rosemary