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President Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday that there is a very serious malfunction in the Romanian alert system, stating that he did not accuse the Government of anything, because it could do nothing in the context of the storms occurred late last week, being a "fresh" Government. "I have asked the Government to start working on a population alert system. I have checked and asked my colleagues to check how people were warned of this dangerous storm that caused havoc and how the authorities responded. I was very unpleasantly surprised - not to say I was really outraged - to find out that the first meteorological warning was given a few minutes before we had the first death in Banat due to the storm.
It is a very serious dysfunction in the warning system. On the other hand, we need a population alert system. Not everyone watches TV all day to see what the National Meteorological Agency says, and this is a system that does not work in the short term," said Iohannis. He announced that he had a communication with the authorities immediately after the first storms. "I did not accuse the Government of anything (...) but I was very displeased that an entity that was supposed to prevent, warn the population did not do it. Fortunately, there have been very successful interventions by firefighters, for example, and they have done a great job, as they usually do and thus I can praise the firefighters. The ISU intervened everywhere and saved what could have been saved," the head of state said.
The President also spoke about the warning system in the US, adding that he wishes such a system to be implemented in Romania. He pointed out that warning messages should be sent more often.
