The President of ANEPC, José Manuel Moura, asserted today that the decision to communicate with the public was taken in a timely manner, although the power outages recorded on Monday also affected the three communication providers, which faced “a technical problem and failed to disseminate the information promptly.”
José Manuel Moura recalled that shortly after the interruption of the national electric grid, occurring at 11:33 AM on Monday in Portugal, the National Operational Coordination Center (CCON) was activated. The center, comprising 30 entities, was tasked with ensuring coordination among civil protection agents, cooperative entities, and those responsible for critical infrastructures.
The initial focus was on maintaining hospital operations: “From 2:35 PM, our full commitment was dedicated to critical situations, with ensuring supply to hospitals being our absolute priority. That was our main concern,” he explained, noting the need to assess existing generators in services and the necessity of delivering fuel.
Only afterwards did ANEPC proceed with the public communication plan, which was hampered by the power outage: “The three main operators were affected and not in conditions to respond promptly,” he stated.
José Manuel Moura further revealed that CCON also initially received “contradictory information” about the power cut, leading authorities to initially misunderstand the nature of the event: whether it was a “civil protection, relief protection, or internal security” issue.
Accurate information was required to inform the public, he explained, reminding that “48 hours later, the cause of this blackout is still unknown.”
The intended message was a “generic information to be disseminated across the entire national territory,” which was eventually requested from the operators during the afternoon.
However, the message reached mobile phones much later and to fewer than 50% of recipients.
The low dissemination rate was also due to the fact that, by then, “people had begun to run out of battery,” he recognized, emphasizing that the CCON was aware since late morning that operators were also experiencing difficulties.
When asked why the first civil protection press conference occurred only 48 hours after the power cut, the ANPC president added that initially, the priority was addressing urgent situations.
“Now is the time to communicate with journalists and the public,” he said, denying any governmental instructions to let the executive handle public communications: “That information never reached us.”
