The mayor of Utiel opens the door to dismantle Mazón's version about the DANA: authorizes the judge to review all his calls

The mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, has authorized the judge investigating the DANA to request from the telephone company the complete list of incoming calls to his corporate mobile phone to check if the then president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, actually contacted him during the day that ended with 230 deaths. Gabaldón explained to the magistrate that he only has the record of outgoing calls and that the operator informed him that incoming calls can only be provided by court order. “I remember the calls I made,” the mayor replied when asked about whether Mazón called him that day.

During his statement as a witness, the first by a mayor in the judicial case, Gabaldón reconstructed minute by minute how the Utiel City Council reacted to the worsening of the storm. The mayor assured that he decided to suspend classes after speaking with directors of educational centers, other councilors and mayors of the region, especially after the school transport company warned of the danger on the roads. “No one came to the schools,” he stated. The decision, adopted without direct intervention from the Generalitat, proved key to avoiding a greater tragedy: “If we hadn't closed the high school, students and parents and grandparents who would have gone to pick them up would have died”.

The mayor recounted that from early morning the orange alert was already activated and that, when it turned red, the council disseminated urgent warnings by radio and social media. “We mobilized whoever we could, the councilors too, we risked our lives”, he assured. Gabaldón explained that the Magro river had overflowed on other occasions, although never with the violence recorded that day. “The plan contemplated about 89 centimeters and not the three meters it rose. It was not imaginable”, he declared before the judge. Furthermore, he recalled that neither the day before nor in the previous days they received specific institutional information about the magnitude of the risk.

The situation in Utiel worsened rapidly during the afternoon. According to the mayor's testimony, the municipality was flooded “in a matter of minutes” after the total overflow of the riverbed, while the Local Police received “suddenly” more than 200 calls asking for help. Gabaldón assured that he contacted “everyone we believed could help us”, including the then councilor Salomé Pradas, the Government delegate Pilar Bernabé and the Generalitat Emergencies to demand the activation of the UME. “The councilor answered all my calls, as did the Government delegate,” he stated.

The panorama left by the flood was, as described by the mayor himself, “devastating”. All neighborhoods were isolated and in the area of La Fuente, one of the most affected, six people died. Gabaldón explained that electricity and communications fell almost completely, although his phone continued working for hours. “They said helicopters were coming, but then they told me it was impossible,” he recounted. Finally, some rescues could be carried out from the air while dozens of residents were transferred to reception centers set up by the City Council. “It was a very long day”, summarized the mayor, who recalled how they had to take refuge during the early morning on the second floor of a restaurant after a second surge of water.