Heatwave protocol: street sweeping to stop from 2 p.m. onwards
The Town Planning, Environment and Mobility Department, headed by Borja Carabante, has decided not to carry out maintenance sweeping services from 2 p.m. onwards, nor the rest of the services between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in view of the activation of the red level of the heat wave plan on Monday.
In addition, vehicles without air conditioning will not be taken out. With regard to the fountains, the City Council has indicated that almost all of them – 2,010 out of 2,116 – are operational. They have also explained that those that are closed are mainly due to repairs due to vandalism or quality controls.
Red level
On Friday 7 July, Madrid City Council’s plan for inclement weather due to heat waves was activated following the warnings issued by the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), first at yellow level and this Sunday upgraded to orange as more than 40 degrees were expected on Monday, when it has been upgraded to red (high risk).
This has led to the reinforcement of the measures put in place last Friday, including coordination measures. The first meeting of the plan’s Advisory Committee, led by the Deputy Mayor’s Office, Spokesperson, Security and Emergencies and made up of the various municipal services, was held at that time. It is a meeting that serves to put all of them on notice and to know the main actions of the services in order to coordinate the appropriate measures.
On the same Friday, 7 July, both internal and external communication mechanisms were activated in order to reach as many people as possible with a series of advice and recommendations from experts in the face of these exceptional cases of heat. The autonomous municipal body Madrid Salud sent the warning to all areas of the city council, so that they could in turn communicate it to the different services.
Also on Friday, an information campaign was launched on the main social media accounts and municipal channels (Madrid Salud, Emergencias Madrid, @Madrid, the municipal website itself), which has been reinforced since Sunday, when an informative video was released by Samur-Protección Civil aimed at the media with service information for citizens with advice and recommendations for the heat wave.
