November 23, 2023.- The accidental subdelegate of the Government in Salamanca, Miriam Vicente Sánchez, presided this morning the meeting of the Provincial Executive Committee of coordination of actions of the organs of the General Administration of the State before snowfall and other adverse weather situations, which has analyzed the Provincial Protocol of action of Winter Roads in the State Road Network for the 2023-2024 campaign.
The subdelegate stressed the importance of coordination between the organs of the General Administration of the State in the development of functions aimed at ensuring road safety on the State Road Network, in the event of snowfall and other extreme weather phenomena that may accentuate the negative effects thereof on the aforementioned Network. All this with the purpose of avoiding or reducing to a minimum the number of sections with traffic restrictions or roadblocks and their duration, and to ensure the attention of the occupants of the vehicles when circumstances make it necessary.
With regard to this last point, in 2020, a new Protocol was signed for the management of care for people blocked or detained on roads in Castilla y León in the face of a situation declared to be emergency due to adverse meteorological phenomena through the signing, between the Government Delegation in Castilla y León and the Ministry of Development and Environment of the Junta de Castilla y León.
Miriam Vicente Sánchez has asked the 362 municipalities of the province to collect salt to face snowfall, since it is an easy product to store and not perishable, since the material means contemplated in the provincial plan are reserved for the maintenance of the road in the State road network.
In the same way, it has asked the citizens to choose, in case of alert for adverse weather phenomena such as heavy snowfall, to avoid unnecessary displacements to avoid risks.
Ensure traffic and attention to drivers
The Provincial Executive Coordinating Committee is composed of representatives of the State Roads Unit in Salamanca, the Provincial Traffic Headquarters, the State Security Forces and Corps and the Civil Protection Unit of the Government Subdelegation in Salamanca. Since 2020, representatives of the Promotion areas of both the Board and the Provincial Council have also joined.
It sets out the operational procedures for the development of the campaign and establishes, among other aspects, the preventive measures, the circumstances in which the different phases of action (which are alert, pre-emergency and emergency) would be activated and the consequent mobilisation of the troops, as well as the channelling of information to the citizens.
With the Winter Road Campaign 2023-2024 of the State Road Network, the aim is to guarantee, as far as possible, traffic on the roads in situations of intense cold and snowfall, as well as the safety of its users, enhancing the work of prevention and management of the incidents caused by snowfall.
Despite all the measures and weather forecasting and information systems, road maintenance and traffic monitoring, there may be situations in which a certain number of vehicles are immobilised at the pocketing points or on the same road for a more or less long time.
For the care of its occupants, the Government Delegation in Castilla y León and the Ministry of Development and Environment of the Junta de Castilla y León signed, in December 2020, a new Protocol for the management of the care of people blocked or detained on roads in Castilla y León in the face of a situation declared of emergency due to adverse meteorological phenomena.
It establishes a system of information transmission and coordinated decision-making that can mobilize government sub-delegations, Civil Protection of the Government Delegation, the General Directorate of Traffic, the Civil Protection Agency, territorial delegations of the Board and the Emergency Center 1-1-2.
This Protocol is a further step in the necessary existence of optimal coordination between the organs of the General Administration of the State involved in the emergency, as well as between these and the homologous organs belonging to the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León.
The accidental subdelegate of the Government has highlighted the existence of this protocol “which shows the interest of all the institutions to improve the system”.
State roads in Salamanca
The State Road Network in Salamanca is composed of the A-62 (Autovía de Castilla), A-66 (Autovía de la Plata) and A-50 (Autovía Ávila-Salamanca), by the national roads, N-620, N-630 and N-501, and by the SA-20 (Ronda Sur de Salamanca) and SA-11 (Access North to Salamanca).
The maintenance and operation of state roads in the province of Salamanca are tasks organized, as in previous years, in three sectors: SA-1, SA-2 and SA-3, and it is carried out through integral conservation contracts with the companies that award these services.
The total of kilometers of the State Road Network that are managed by the State Road Unit in Salamanca is 627.80, as they are added to the two sections belonging to the province of Zamora, both of the A-62 and the N-620, comprised between the limit of the province of Valladolid and the limit of the province of Zamora, which are encompassed in the service contract of Sector SA-2.
AVAILABLE MEDIA
The means available for the winter road campaign 2023-2024 in Salamanca are:
Sector SA-1
- 10 snow-removing vehicles equipped with GPS and equipped with blade for the removal and clearance of snow from the roadway and spreading of flux on it to prevent the formation of ice. Of these, 8 are located in the conservation center of Salamanca and 2 in Ciudad Rodrigo.
- Likewise, this sector has a total capacity for the storage of fluxes (sodium chloride) of 1,405 tons of salt, distributed by piles in 3 warehouses: 960 tonnes in Salamanca, 30 tonnes in La Fuente de San Esteban and 15 tonnes in Ciudad Rodrigo; and 4 silos of 100 tonnes arranged along the A-62 motorway at kilometre points 269 (Robliza de Cojos), 293.2 (La Fuente de San Esteban), 326,545 (Ciudad Rodrigo) and on the N-620 road, kilometre point 340,718 (Mirage Link).
- It also has three brine plants, which have a total storage capacity of 148,000 liters, of which 100,000 are stored in the conservation center of Salamanca.