Our disaster notification system is designed so that first the signal is submitted by the local government or the regional governor, when it is noticed that there is a problem. Then this information goes to the fire department, where it is assessed whether there is a real risk. Only then is the signal sent to the phones of the people living in the affected area.
In the case in Montana, it turns out that the mayors of the settlements that were submerged did not go to mandatory training, after which they can send signals to BG-Alert. They, in turn, put another question on the table - how to predict that a disaster will occur without having access to the radars? They also asked whether there is actually an institution in the country that constantly monitors the metrological weather. The short answer is yes - NIMH. However, NIMH turns out not to be directly connected to the system. The reason for this is technological shortcomings that they still have to clear up.
The Ministry of Environment and Water had to sign off, the fire department and NIMH say, in order to gain access to the system.
Saturday afternoon. Hours before the institutions assumed that intense rains would flood several villages in Montana and wash away roads, the forecast announced that almost the entire country had conditions for short but intense rainfall, accompanied by thunderstorms. The climate models turned out to be correct and the storm arrived. However, locals were not warned that it was better to go to higher ground or not to drive their cars on roads that would be flooded. It turns out that the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, which constantly monitors the weather, is not yet part of the system that should notify about natural disasters and cataclysms - BG-Alert.
“In order to be connected, it is necessary for the relevant competent minister - in the case of the environment and waters, to have a request for the use of this system”, specifies the director of the DG “Fire Safety and Population Protection“ Chief Comm. Alexander Dzhartov to Nova TV.
We are trying to find out when the Ministry of Water and Environment will be ready, but the press center explained to us in a telephone conversation that it was not their minister, but the Ministry of Electronic Governance that refused to give NIMH access to BG-Alert. We are also looking for the Ministry of Electronic Governance. They state that there has never been such a desire on the part of NIMH. We are also raising the issue with NIHM.
“First, this activity must be technically and legally ensured, and this requires coordination through our principal, the Ministry of Environment and Water. This has not been done because we are not technically ready either. There are specific steps that we must implement in terms of technology”, emphasized the Deputy Director General of “Operational Activities” at NIHM Orilin Georgiev.
There are no deadlines for this. 85 municipal administrations have access to the system, which the Institute, which monitors the weather, does not have. They are only that many because the remaining 180 have not undergone mandatory training.
“When it comes to threats of local importance, the regional governors and mayors are competent. This is the case with the municipalities of Haiderin and Boychinovtsi. They were supposed to prepare messages, post them on the interface of the BG-Alert system, so that they could reflect in sending the relevant messages to the people who have it installed. This did not happen because the mayoral administrations in question did not send people for training at all”, said Mitov.
He emphasized that the mayors should take a very serious look at BG-Alert and send people to be trained and to be included in the list of competent persons who can send such messages.
Among these 180 is the mayor of Hayredin Todor Aleksiev. “They wrote a letter a year and a half ago. Now we have opened the municipality's correspondence. This letter was written as a recommendation and, if possible, if we want, to go to training”, he says. And while in Bulgaria we continue to wonder when the rain will turn into a disaster, Nikolay Vasilkovski and I open the radars. Between 30 min. and an hour earlier it can be predicted, if it will occur. “Let's actually look at what the radars show. 21st century - satellites, radars constantly monitor every meteorological process in the atmosphere. Here is one such process in the USA. We can see that it was clear half an hour ago that this front would pass through the town of Wolsey. With an extremely high probability I can say that people received a notification or SMS about this”, says the forecaster.