The State Civil Protection Council closes its second annual ordinary session with a consolidated structure of organization, operation, and linkage between the armed forces, agencies of the three levels of government, and the population of the state, reporting on the preventive actions carried out in the face of a lenient hurricane season for Yucatán.
The council and the entities represented are an example of inter-institutional coordination for the good of the Yucatecans, which strengthens prevention and timely attention to major emergencies and disasters, stated the executive secretary of the organization and head of the State Coordination of Civil Protection, Procivy, Master Enrique Alcocer Basto.
In the Online Session, Alcocer Basto presented the Public Accountant Fernando Rosel Flores, Undersecretary of Prevention and Social Rehabilitation of the General Secretariat of Government of the State of Yucatán, who attended on behalf of the Constitutional Governor of the State of Yucatán and President of this Council State Civil Protection, Lic. Mauricio Vila Dosal.
The first intervention was given by MI José Luis Acosta Rodríguez, General Director of the Yucatán Peninsula Basin Organization of CONAGUA, who informed this Council about the summary of what happened during the recently concluded 2023 Hurricane Season and the Outlook for the 2023-2024 Cold Front Season.
Regarding the 2023 hurricane season, it has been a year that has performed below average, in terms of precipitation. Regarding tropical waves, 29 were formed. The coastal area of Yucatán presented the lowest rainfall. Drought conditions increased, mostly in Tizimín and surrounding municipalities, commented the director of Conagua in Yucatán.
“10 to 16 tropical cyclones were forecast for the Atlantic Ocean, but let us remember that this year the Pacific Ocean was affected by the “El Niño” phenomenon and forecasters tell us that this reduces the formation of tropical cyclones for the Atlantic. However, for this year, it was different, because there were sea water temperature conditions above average, a situation considered abnormal in addition to the formation of high pressure in the Atlantic, favoring the generation and mobilization of these systems to the North part”.
In the Atlantic, there were two tropical cyclone landfalls, while in the Pacific 6 of these systems made landfall, the one with the greatest impact was Hurricane “Otis” in the state of Guerrero. In the case of the Atlantic, “Harold” influenced Yucatán with rains and the Tropical Storm “Idalia” was the one that was closest to Yucatán, generating only rains in our territory.
Regarding Cold Fronts, 56 are predicted from September to May, the first was generated out of season in the month of August and, so far, 18 have been formed, so there would be 38 of these phenomena missing, Acosta Rodríguez concluded. .
Alcocer Basto added that the State Monitoring and Warning System, SEMA, of the State Coordination of Civil Protection, continued reporting through the agency’s social networks and press releases about the formation of 21 tropical cyclones; 19 with a name and 2 without a name, of these 13 were tropical storms, of these 7 became hurricanes, of these 3 reached category 1, one of category 2, two of category 4 and one of category 5, in addition to the tropical depression number 21. For these phenomena, 134 bulletins were issued, 104 for tropical cyclones, 19 for low pressure monitoring and 3 for the rainy season, 2 for tropical waves and two for Saharan dust.
Due to Tropical Storm “Idalia”, 16 tropical cyclone bulletins were issued, of which 4 were Blue Alert to 59 municipalities.
“More hurricane prevention activities were carried out than ever, the most relevant being the Visit of the Hurricane Hunter Plane, the holding of the National Civil Protection Fair, training for the media in coordination with the Chamber of the Radio Industry And Television, CIRT Yucatán.”
Visit house to house to the highest risk areas, delivering printed material consisting of 10,000 posters in Spanish, Mayan, French and English, as well as 50,000 brochures.
With the Governor’s instructions we prepared as always; We held the University Conference on Civil Protection in coordination with the UADY, we participated in the National Civil Protection Meeting held in Quintana Roo, we held the Second State Congress on Hurricane Preparedness with the participation of international and national speakers. The Emergency and Disaster Assistance Fund (FAED) was increased to 14 million 905 thousand 260 pesos, the official added.
“We met with all the municipalities, especially the coastal ones, the hurricane campaign was carried out not only through Procivy’s social networks, but also through radio and television as well as the various printed media in Yucatán.”
“We carried out social proximity activities, we coordinated committees, we had the strategic reserve prepared, we stood out in the evacuation drills carried out at the national level, we organized regional operational preparation meetings throughout the state, we trained the DIF Yucatán System in the administration of temporary shelters ”.
This year, nature forgave us like few other times, the truth is that we were lucky not to be affected by any tropical cyclone, nor did we have emergencies due to rain, it was a calm season in that sense. Everything remained in prevention, highlighted Alcocer Basto.
TYT Newsroom