The Ombudsman on the Handling of the Extreme Snow of 14-15 March

The authorities participating in handling the extreme snow situation, together with the voluntary rescue teams and civilians, carried out their rescue activities with the best possible utilization of both personnel and equipment. There were, however, some serious shortcomings in the course of  preparing, alerting and informing the population, and in communications, too – concluded Ombudsman Máté Szabó summing up his ex officio investigation.

Early warning efforts and information provided to the population by the official bodies in the course of events were insufficient. The flow of information in conventional media was not quick enough, it did not reach the population as needed – stated the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights after he had requested and received written briefings from the authorities in charge. Máté Szabó also emphasized that, given the fast development of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) and smart phone applications, disaster management bodies cannot rely exclusively on conventional media and conventional means of communication in preparing and informing the population in crisis situations. The adequate use of the new communication channels would have been more suitable for informing the population, it could have helped, at least partially, preventing the crisis or mitigating its consequences and, ultimately, preventing some anomalies, related to the fundamental rights of a large group of citizens, from happening.

The Commissioner drew the attention of the competent bodies (National Directorate General for Disaster Management, National Police Headquarters) to the fact that there were some glitches in their internal communications making the coordinated management of rescue operations more difficult.

Investigating the interruptions in traffic, the Ombudsman concluded that rescue operations on the nation's motorways had been significantly hindered, beside the blizzards and the series of accidents, by the motorists' failure to free up rescue lanes as stipulated by the Highway Code for such situations. In his report the Ombudsman also stressed that the problems on Motorway M1 could have been mitigated if the State Motorway Management Company had duly informed the motorists, upon entering or on roadside notice boards, of the motorway's actual serviceableness.

Public transportation disorders plagued mainly the railway service. In this context the Ombudsman pointed out that MÁV (Hungarian State Railways) had not adequately complied with its obligation to duly inform its passengers, had not been duly prepared to handle the delays, provide its passengers with food and water and refund the tickets.

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights requested the Minister of Interior to review the experiences of the concerned bodies' on-the-spot and deployment/management communication, and the possibility and probable methods of involving voluntary associations and individuals well-versed in social media communication in the crisis communication activities of their subordinate organizations. Máté Szabó also proposed to the Minister of Interior to consider, together with the Minister for National Development, the possibility of planting protective forests alongside the motorway network, and he requested the Minister for National Development to work on the possibility of a combined system of transporting goods (by railway and road). The Ombudsman also suggested that the Director General of the National Directorate for Disaster Management should review the efficiency of the current system of alerting the population and pay bigger attention to preparing the people for crisis situations caused by extreme weather conditions.