If a message is given, why did you give it?

The head of DSU Raed Arafat responded to the criticism regarding the measures and messages of excessive alarm of the population for the Ashley cyclone, which turned out to be much less apocalyptic than it was presented.

The Secretary of State in the MAI said that the measures to evacuate and alert the population taken this weekend were the correct ones.

“More than 5,000 people were evacuated from several counties this past weekend, in the face of the scourge that did not have the force predicted by meteorologists. The inspectorates for emergency situations in Galati, Vaslui, Argeș and Brașov had additional staff shifts to be able to intervene in case of necessity.

“Measures were necessary”

The coordinator of the Department of Emergency Situations believes that he acted correctly, according to the existing scenarios from meteorologists. The measures were necessary,” said the Secretary of State at Europa FM.

“We knew the scenario ahead of time and then we had to prepare for this worst-case scenario, which meant that the clouds would completely descend on Romania and we would have more than 100 liters and extreme weather phenomena that require an early, preventive intervention. To protect the population.

The conclusion is that the impact was not at the level of the worst case scenario, but the measures that were taken – and if now someone comes and says to us: ‘would you take them one more time?’, the answer is yes. Because at the time they took the situation, it looked like there would be a major impact of rain and wind,” explained Arafat.

Asked if there was any exaggeration in alerting or evacuating the population in areas where ANM issued orange or red codes of quantitatively significant rains, the head of the DSU responded to criticism from the online environment and beyond.

“There are provocative messages and anyone who says something immediately is attacked”

“Absolutely not the normal reaction given the weather and hydro forecasts that were at the time? Our reaction was a normal one, and it would be good to stop criticizing either side. If a message is given, why did you give it? If it’s not given, why didn’t you give it? If you do something, why did you do it? If you didn’t, why didn’t you?

It doesn’t work like that anymore. The population will lose their confidence completely. There are people who manipulate these messages on social media. They are provocative messages and anyone who says something immediately is attacked. Now I was reading a message that someone says that from ANM they said that there was no cyclone Ashley. But I don’t think so. These are false messages propagated on social media”, Raed Arafat also declared.