Valencia's À Punt de la dana coverage: delivery, public service and technology

The team of At Punt, represented by Iván Esteve, news director; Higinio Añó, director of exploitation and engineering, and Luis López, director of the systems and communication unit, share the keys to the technical and human deployment that made it possible to shed light and give a voice to those affected by the Valencia disaster, a catastrophe that devastated Valencia on October 29, leaving 224 fatalities in its wake.

“Al tercer día de la dana, nos llamó una vecina de Paiporta que había trabajado en Canal Nou, nuestra anterior etapa. Nos contó que su marido era informático y había volado un drone al día siguiente cuando no había llegado nadie; las imágenes eran un documento histórico, y nos las quería dar a nosotros… Pero no tenían Internet y teníamos que ir andando, llevar un disco duro, recoger las imágenes y volver…”.

He October 24, la AEMET, Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, envío un primer mensaje advirtiendo de una dana, todavía sin conocimiento de su posición final. El día 27, la agencia emitió un “aviso especial” indicando que en el mediterranean area the showers would be “much stronger or even torrential.” A day later, the University of Valencia convened its emergency committee and decided, late in the afternoon, to suspend classes for the next day, a decision shared by the Polytechnic University. At 07:31 On Tuesday, October 29, the Aemet of Valencia notifies Civil Protection to raise the warning to red level in the northern interior area of ​​the province. Five minutes later, as detailed in the excellent article Natalia Junquera to The Country, compiling the complete sequence of events, the alert extends to the southern coast.

“four days beforeThat is, on Friday morning, Victoria Rosselló, the head of the meteorological service, sent me a message to tell me that confirmed and some amounts of precipitation were advancing: 100 and 200 liters generalized. He added an expression: “And whoever it is, or wherever it is, will receive more than 500””. – Ivan Esteve.

In front of a official report what justifies negligence in unpredictability, accompanied with the usual crossed accusations, At Punt, the Valencian public television, assures that the dana “caught forewarned"So much so that, on the same morning of the 29th, the network's news programs were already reporting the first floods and floods; everything, with technical equipment such as backpacks or DSNG rented in advance.

Ivan Esteve received the notice from the meteorology area of ​​the house, the weather, that a dana was forming with one week in advance: "Four days before, that is, on Friday morning, Victoria Rosselló, the head of the meteorological service, sent me a message to tell me that some amounts of precipitation were confirmed and advanced: 100 and 200 liters in general. She added an expression: "And whoever it is, or wherever it is, will receive more than 500” says the news director.

The team of At Punt was warned: he designed a plan of action throughout the entire previous weekend to reinforce teams from the first hour of the morning of October 29.

The forecasts were worrying. They were reminiscent of a similar meteorological phenomenon that occurred in Vega Baja in Alicante in 2019, which left records of up to 543 liters per square meter in 48 hours. It was the natural disaster with the highest economic cost in the history of Spain (1.3 billion euros) and took the lives of six people. This precedent led the À Punt team to design a plan of action throughout the previous weekend and reinforce teams from the early morning of October 29. Among other decisions, it was decided to add six backpacks LiveU, which would complement the units Aviwest existing. They were accompanied by light cameras Sony, like the models PXW-280 o PXW-X400. This rent was not enough to respond to what would precede: the greatest news coverage of the history of À Punt, and the more exhausting, physically, mentally and emotionally.

“Natacha Blay, production director, called her to manage the drone images.”What do you want for the images?"He asked. We are used to paying for that type of material. The girl refused to charge us anything. But he did tell us: “I'll give it to you, but since you're coming, if you could bring us batteries for flashlight… We also have no electricity and we are running out.”

With that first information, a work of public service which would end up being the “most difficult”, in Esteve's words, that the À Punt team has had to face. "The effort of the editorial team has been brutal. People came in devastated, exhausted. But they asked when they could go out on the street again," he recalls, acknowledging with a trembling voice the "emotional impact” that what happened has had on the entire team.

"He writing effort It has been brutal. The people came dust, burst. but I asked When could I go out on the street again?”. - Iván Esteve

In the afternoon-night the worst hours of the dana were experienced. Alaquàs, Albal, Albalat de la Ribera, Alborache, Alcàsser, l'Alcúdia, Aldaia, Alfafar, Alfarb, Algemesí, Alginet, Almussafes, Alzira, Benetússer, Benicull de Xúquer, Benifaió, Beniparrell, Bétera, Bugarra, Buñol, Calles, Camporrobles, Carcaixent, Carlet, Castelló, Catadau, Catarroja, Caudete de las Fuentes, Chera, Cheste, Chiva, Chulilla, Corbera, Cullera, Dos Aguas, Favara, Fortaleny, Fuenterrobles, Gestalgar, Godelleta, Guadassuar, l'Énova, Llaurí, Llombai, Llíria, Llocnou de la Corona, Loriguilla, Macastre, Manuel, Manises, Massanassa, Millares, Mislata, Montroi/Montroy, Montserrat, Paiporta, Paterna, Pedralba, Picanya, Picassent, Polinyà de Xúquer, La Pobla Llarga, Quart de Poblet, Rafelguaraf, Real, Requena, Riba-roja de Túria, Riola, Sedaví, Senyera, Siete Aguas, Silla, Sinarcas, Sollana, Sot de Chera, Sueca, Tavernes de la Valldigna, Torrent, Tous, Turís, Utiel, Valencia (southern districts: Castellar-L’Oliveral, El Palmar, El Forn d’Alcedo, La Torre-Faitanar, El Perellonet, Pinedo, La Punta and El Saler), Vilamarxant, Xirivella and Yátova were affected, to a greater or lesser extent. Floods, floods and confusion.

In those critical hours, five À Punt teams found themselves without the possibility of returning to the chain's headquarters in Burjassot or to their own homes. Two stayed on the A3 highway, in Buñol and Requena; three had to be housed by residents of Horta Sud municipalities. The telecommunications networks began to fail, and the information work had to be carried out with the uncertainty about the relatives of the journalists themselves and the technical team of the radio and television stationAs Higinio Añó comments: "In my case, I stopped having contact with my family. There was no human way to know what conditions they were in."

At 9:30 p.m., when the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, addressed the citizens and announced that À Punt would become the “Official Information Channel” of the dana, the communication networks were down. He 112 was also saturated, and public radio and television took a step forward so that people could tell how they were, or if they had someone missing, through a special radio broadcast. For this, the general house phone: “Although we couldn't really do much in that sense, it helped make those people feel heard.”

Las networks failed, and the informative work had to be carried out with the uncertainty of those close to the workers themselves, as he comments Higinio Añó: "In my case, I stopped having contact with my family. There was no human way to know What condition were they in?”.

The technology team changed the audio lines so that Gustavo Clemente, host of the night's sports program, could report what happened in real time. The calls, in Esteve's words, were “chilling”: “They called us from the top of a tree, the roof of a truck on the V-30 or from the roof of the Civil Guard barracks in Paiporta, where there were 50 people, including relatives and neighbors. In fact, there they told us that they had lost sight of five colleagues. Finally, there were two civil guards who died because the wave dragged them into the barracks garage.” The program is posted on the web. For the news director, it is a “documento histórico from A Punt y de la Dana”.

Accompanying the sound testimonies, the À Punt news team received “very harsh” images. “We know the images that we have broadcast and those that we have not", comments Esteve, referring to videos of people floating in the water or clinging to trees or street furniture for minutes to later be dragged by the water. At all times, tried to avoid causing pain to the spectators: "We have a video from Catarroja of a woman floating down the street. You can see her head, she sinks, she rises up again. She tries to grab a tree and fails. We discarded these images on the night of the 29th, but two days later a newspaper published that a truck driver had managed to save that woman. It was a happy story. (...) Even at that time, we didn't give the images either. We would have reminded the families of the victims of the way in which their relatives died”.

"Natacha replied that of course we could bring him batteries. And she hung up the phone. But she kept thinking, the called again and asked, “What do you really need?” To which he responded: “If you can bring us some water, toilet paper and cold cuts…” It is possible to get an idea of ​​the needs that people had in the areas in those days.”

The coverage was extended to the next morning, and accompanied for more than a month to the Valencian citizenship. Until November 29, when the news was taken to the streets for a special broadcast from “ground zero”, the Paiporta casino, the À Punt team offered more than 17 hours a day of live information.

Form the human teams for the day's coverage October 30 It was a complex task. Some workers had to sleep in the own television faced with the impossibility of returning to their homes; others could be accommodated in nearby hotels to be able to cover what happened; many could not get out of their pueblos because everything was “cut off and flooded.”

In many municipalities of Horta Sud There was no phone coverage either., which meant that they had to be recorded falsos directos, salir de la zona para “intentar buscar algo de coverage” y enviarlos para añadirlos a la parrilla de informativos.

Estas dificultades se extendieron al trabajo informativo. Los vehículos no pudieron entrar en los municipios afectados hasta cinco días después, lo que hacía que los equipos de redacción, cámara y mochila al hombro, tuvieran que caminar varios kilómetros para desplazarse a lugares donde no había llegado ni policía ni ejército. En muchos municipios de la Horta Sud There was no phone coverage either., which meant that they had to be recorded falsos directos, salir de la zona para “intentar buscar algo de cobertura” y enviarlos para añadirlos a la parrilla de informativos.

The À Punt engineering team reinforced the telecommunications area with the rental of a unit DSNG and the sporadic use of the satellite system Starlink. The decision was also made to activate contracts of emergency for the incorporation of additional personnel (editors, camera operators and sound operators) and for comprar the LiveU backpacks that had initially been rented: "We acquired them because we had a surplus for investment at the end of the year. We have left several projects for 2025, and we have put all the financial effort into equipment to be able to provide the information service."

On the 29th a vehicle disappeared with cameras, spotlights, microphones and a broadcast backpack: the editor and cameraman they had to abandon the car by the floods. He was found two months later in Catarroja destroyed.

The rain, humidity and mud They directly affected the equipment used for news coverage. Añó confirms that numerous equipment has had to be reviewed to certify if it could continue to be used or would have to go through technical support. Also, on the 29th, a vehicle disappeared with cameras, spotlights, microphones and a broadcast backpack: the editor and the cameraman had to abandon the car due to the force of the floods. He was found two months later in Catarroja completely destroyed..

"We opened the evening news with those images. They were brutal. Spectacular. We would have paid anything for those images, and the woman only asked us for some water, toilet paper, and cold cuts. Was stand”.

More than 300 personas participated in the news coverage of the dana from In Punt. Los editors, despite the physical and emotional exhaustion, they threw themselves into their work. Staff of the technology team He volunteered to go to the radio and television headquarters to help with coverage or respond to possible technical eventualities.

An unprecedented decision was also made: to start from the first minute a human and technical collaboration between the teams informative and programs. In Esteve's words: “With the general management, we decided that we were going to break the law which prevented external production companies from participating in the house's news programs. The emergency justifies that all the news teams were available to the programs and vice versa." Technical resources were also made available for this coverage. The team led by Añó shared the backpacks from To Punt with the magazines, “directly pairing encoders and decoders”, their own and those of others, to “double or increase the image capture for those magazines”.

“The management of this dana that's it judicialized, and will most likely end in a great trial of what happened that day. And, obviously, one of the documentary evidence will be the recordings and broadcasts of À Punt”. – Ivan Esteve

The hundreds of hours of content related to the October 29 dana are testimony of the efforts of a radio and television station willing to carry out a public service task, and evidence of some political decisions that justice will say if they have been direct consequence of the loss of 224 lives. “The management of this damage is already judicialized, and will most likely end in a great trial of what happened that day. And, obviously, one of the documentary evidence will be the recordings and broadcasts of À Punt,” explains Esteve.

Today, the À Punt news programs continue to show a return to a fictitious normality. The wounds remain open in footprints that remain in streets and homes. Also in the absences. "We have to turn the page, tell other contents. (...) We were the first to arrive, but we also want to be the last to leave. These people, two months later, still have garages full of mud, mountains of cars that catch on fire and, furthermore, they do not receive aid. (...) We will be and we will go to those towns again, tomorrow, the day after and as many times as necessary”, comments the head of news.

“There is a some consensus level social that, at least we, yes, we have been up to par in the coverage of the dana”. – Ivan Esteve.

The usefulness of regional television as a public service has been demonstrated with complete information coverage, Esteve assures, with “informative independence, without interference and, furthermore, without falling into sensationalism" "We have not done anything extraordinary, but what was expected of us. We are very proud and in recent days everything has been thanks and recognition," he says, trusting that his work has served to demonstrate the value of À Punt for all Valencian citizens: "If our work has served to ensure that there is a part of society that connect or reconnect with its public means, then welcome. There is a certain consensus at the social level that, at least we, yes, we have been up to par in the coverage of the dana”.

An article by Sergio Julián Gómez
Cover photo: Octavio Alcaraz

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