The 2024 National Drill will be held on September 19; cell phone alerts are yet to be defined: Civil Protection

Macro drill, Civil Protection teams. PHOTO: CRISANTA ESPINOSA AGUILAR / CUARTOSCURO.COM

On August 2, the usual morning conference began at 6 a.m. and not at 7 a.m. as usual, because President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) decided to publicly share how the meetings he holds with the security cabinet are carried out every day of the week, in the “Ignacio Zaragoza” room of the National Palace.

From there it was reported that, “The National Drill 2024 is next September 19, it will be carried out throughout the country at 11 in the morning, 14 thousand loudspeakers will sound through our entire alert system,” as announced by the person in charge of Civil Protection.

He added that “On August 19 we will carry out another test of this alert system via cell phone. We have to have 100 percent assurance that this new alert system for the entire Republic has to be 100 percent enabled, that we have all the communication capabilities. On August 19 it will be determined whether or not we will have the technical capacity to be able to carry it out on September 19 when the National Drill will be held,” he said.

He made it clear that, “There are no obstacles, everything has been carried out with great transparency in a timely manner, all the telephone companies (sic) that signed up and won these public tenders are already prepared, but I insist, we have to give the guarantee that it will be a highly secure system and that it must communicate the prevention that we seek as we do with the drill,” he argued.

This is the announcement that was made in today’s morning press conference, which by the way, broke a new record in its broadcast time, being the longest in all of AMLO’s mandate, with 3 hours and 35 minutes.

The event was attended by the legal advisor, María Estela Ríos González; the head of the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA), Luis Cresencio Sandoval; the commander of the National Guard (GN), David Córdova Campos; the head of the Navy Secretariat (SEMAR), José Rafael Ojeda Durán; and the Spokesperson of the Government of the Republic, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas.

Luisa María Alcalde Luján, head of the Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB); Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez, head of the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC); the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Alicia Bárcena Ibarra and the National Coordinator of Civil Protection (CNPC), Laura Velázquez Alzúa.

Longest conference, AMLO