Mayors across Tarragona province have criticized authorities after a violent hailstorm hit the region, leaving around thirty people with minor injuries and prompting emergency services to respond to nearly 500 incidents. The storm struck on Monday, uprooting trees, flooding homes and parking lots, cutting off roads and suspending train services. Many residents were caught off guard. Some were trapped in vehicles as the hail intensified.
Local leaders, including Tarragona's mayor Rubén Viñuales and El Vendrell's Kenneth Martínez, say the lack of timely alerts left their municipalities unprepared for the scale of the disaster. Viñuales said the official warning from the Catalonia Emergency Center (CECAT) arrived only after the storm had begun. Initial forecasts had placed Tarragona outside the basic risk zone. He said pre-alerts are often issued for less severe events, and he would have preferred an early warning in this case given the widespread flooding, downed trees and power outages in areas such as Monnars.
El Vendrell's mayor shared these concerns, noting that his town had already experienced a severe storm just two days earlier. He said alerts arrived only as the rain began, complicating the response. The latest episode caused 11 injuries and left a minor in critical condition. As a precaution, authorities evacuated a campsite and removed 200 young people from a nightclub.
Civil Protection officials defended their decision not to send mass alerts, saying the forecast did not show enough risk to justify activating the Es-Alert system. The agency said alerts are typically reserved for situations where the danger level reaches 5 or 6 out of 6. This storm's predicted intensity was rated at level 4, below the threshold. The director of Meteocat clarified that Civil Protection, not Meteocat, is responsible for issuing public alerts. Meteocat issued a violent weather warning for Tarragona at 17:35, shortly before the storm hit. The agency's deputy director acknowledged that storms were more severe than initially expected in some areas.
Debate over Es-Alert has grown as the system is used more often for imminent and preventive warnings. Some see it as a critical public-safety tool; others question whether the criteria for using it are too restrictive or inconsistently applied. The controversy is not new. Previous severe weather events in Tarragona, including reports of earlier torrential rains and evacuations, have also raised questions about how effective alert protocols are.
Spain's Civil Protection system draws on meteorological forecasts and risk assessments to decide when to issue public warnings. Introduced in recent years, Es-Alert sends emergency notifications directly to mobile phones in affected areas. The system is intended for situations posing an imminent threat to life, but local officials and emergency planners continue to debate its activation criteria. As extreme weather events become more frequent, authorities and residents are still weighing how to avoid unnecessary panic while ensuring timely warnings.
