The audits of the Pedrógão Grande fires highlighted a serious flaw at the top of the Civil Protection command structure. One of the reports delivered to Parliament indicates that the national operational commander of the National Civil Protection Authority, at the time Rui Esteves, should have had “an active presence” during the fire. That he should not have delegated command of operations to his number two, Lieutenant Colonel Albino Tavares, the man who ordered the communications operators not to record any more alerts on the tape at the time of the fire. An order that, in practice, will have made it impossible to assess all flaws in the operational response.
Almost a decade later, we are again witnessing signs of serious problems at the top of the command structures of the entity responsible for warning and dealing with the effects of these catastrophic phenomena.
The absence of the National Civil Protection commander from the country during the worst days of storms Joseph and Kristin, on the 26th, 27th and 28th of January, is serious and constitutes a symptom of greater evils.
It’s not so much the fact that Mário Silvestre, the man at the top of the coordination pyramid, the last word in all operational decisions, was authorized to travel to Brussels for training. It is possible, although implausible, that there was not yet a clear idea about the risks of Storm Kristin, but it is not excusable that Mário Silvestre did not return immediately when the effects were already visible even to the untrained eyes of ordinary citizens.
Yesterday, Mário Silvestre rehearsed the condemned’s speech: “My physical presence would not have changed anything”, since “nothing was left undone due to my absence”.
Of the two, either Mário Silvestre considers – ten years after Pedrogão – that it is acceptable to command operations in a State of Calamity via Zoom, Teams or WhatsApp, or he has just assumed that there is no need for operations at all.
Deputy Director of News Diary
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