The Smarty Planet sensor network allows the Municipality of Agramunt to monitor the rise in flow of the Sió River. Agramunt, November 24, 2016 – The heavy rains yesterday caused the headwaters of the Sió River to overflow, putting Agramunt on alert for the possibility of a new flood. The storms accumulated up to 55 liters per square meter.
“Yesterday we had a real test,” said Joan Pijuan, Councilor for New Technologies of the Municipality of Agramunt, in the assessment of the emergency situation experienced throughout the afternoon and night yesterday, with the memory of last year’s flood.
Pijuan explained that yesterday they had the opportunity to test the operation of the sensor network in the Sió River, recently installed by the Municipality of Agramunt.
“When we saw that the weather was unsettled, all the alarms went off. There was a heavy discharge of water, and the central sensor of the three installed at different points of the Sió River recorded a very strong rise, which in just 25 minutes increased the river flow to four meters.”
The Smarty River Early Flood Risk Warning (SAPI) control system, installed a few months ago by Arantec in the Sió River, allowed the officials of the Agramunt municipality to coordinate prevention and alert tasks with Emergency Services, Mossos d’Esquadra, and the Local Police to inform citizens about the real-time situation of the river and take preventive measures against the rising waters.
Agramunt was able to witness yesterday the operation of the river flow measurement system in the Sió River, which alerted hours before the river flood.
Firefighters and Mossos were on alert at the height of Tarroja, where the Sió River’s water level rose from 30 centimeters to four meters, flooding the access roads to the town.
In Agramunt, the Local Police closed off streets parallel to the river and recommended the removal of parked vehicles, as well as valuable objects that may have been in the basements of buildings. The municipality set up the Macià Companys school as an emergency point, and the Red Cross provided blankets.
Sources from the Municipality of Agramunt have reported that, following the sudden rise in water level detected by the sensor in Castellnou de Ossó, which went from 40cm to 2.5m in less than 20 minutes, the maximum level was reached in Agramunt around 7:30 a.m. this morning. At the moment, the level is stable, although the alert phase is still in effect.
The Municipality of Agramunt, in collaboration with other municipalities in the Urgell and Segarra regions of Lleida, relied on the Smarty River system to monitor and respond to the river’s flood situation.
