The Municipality of La Reina presented a municipal evacuation plan for debris flows this Saturday, October 24. The plan targets areas damaged by the 1993 debris flow that remain exposed to Quebrada de Ramón.
According to CNN Chile, Mayor José Manuel Palacios led the presentation amid the weather fronts that have hit central Chile. The municipality's Disaster Risk and Emergency Management Unit developed the initiative.
The plan includes two evacuation maps for the highest-risk areas. Both identify Francisco Bilbao and Fernando Castillo Velasco avenues as safe zones. The municipality also installed seven signs near the ravine and escape routes.
"We know this is an exposed area," Palacios told Cooperativa. He explained that municipal geographers designed the plan based on the experience of 1993, when the debris flow affected, in his words, "a significant percentage of the population" of the municipality.
Water flows are monitored through a partnership with a local La Reina company, according to the mayor. With that technological support, the municipality estimates a response time of around 30 minutes and hopes to extend it as the system improves. Cooperativa and Meganoticias warn that its effectiveness will depend on the conditions of each emergency.
An SMS messaging system also began operating during the most recent weather front. It sends precautionary and evacuation notices to residents' mobile phones depending on the scale of the event. The municipality also showed a video made with artificial intelligence that recreates a debris flow in the municipality.
The plan follows the overflow of Quebrada Honda in Las Condes, which reopened the debate over prevention. "One of the problems in Las Condes was that residents encountered the debris flow when water or mud was already entering their homes," Palacios said.
The mayor acknowledged that these measures do not replace engineering works. He called for the construction of the settling basins planned for the upper part of Padre Hurtado Park, intended to trap sediment coming down from the mountains. According to CNN Chile, the engineering design is ready and the Ministry of Public Works is considering the funding. Cooperativa put the investment at between 80 billion and 100 billion pesos.
Palacios estimated that around 20% of the municipality's residents could be affected by a debris flow. He also called on the government to include municipalities facing this risk in the Emergency Alert System (SAE), which is administered by the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) and sends alerts to all mobile phones in an area.
