By Gene Alcantara, London
(Editor´s notes: Gene Alcantara lives in London but bought a house in Valencia, Spain with his family. He was not in Valencia when the flashfloods occurred but he came to Valencia to witness for himself the destruction the disaster wrought on the city and his own neighborhood. This article is a personal account of what he saw when he landed. All photographs are by the author.)
While boarding my Vuelling flight to Valencia, I felt a slight trepidation. I know that the destruction wreaked by the floods on the low lying areas of Valencia was still too recent for me to expect that things had been cleared up. Apparently, a full year’s worth of rain fell on the area within 8 hours, a phenomenon brought on by DANA (isolated depression at high levels) in the Mediterranean. The destruction wrought by the flood was shown all over TV news programmes and YouTube videos. The clips were endlessly showing rushing waters, mangled cars tossed by the waves and piled on top of each other like toy cars, and then, there’s the body count.
Church in Turis, Valencia, unaffected by the flood as it is 270 metres above sea level.
Also shown on those videos were the long lines of volunteers, many in white coveralls and with masks on at the Arts & Sciences building and then at work in various pueblos, cleaning up, brushing the muddy water off sidewalks and streets, helping the residents. Piles and piles of furniture and personal belongings, ruined by the water, the broken garage doors and walls were strewn everywhere.
Destruction in our neighborhood
Our house in Valencia sits on a hilly part of Turis, with an elevation of 270 metres, about 25 minutes from the airport. To get there, we need to drive across highways for about 15 minutes, along flat landscapes, with buildings on either side dwindling to fields and open spaces as one leaves the city.
Before, we enjoyed such beautiful sights along the drive to our house. With trains sometimes shooting past alongside us on the way to Madrid. But this time, we had to reassess everything based on witness interviews on TV. One woman said in an interview that they were driving along the highway when suddenly, flood waters were rushing in very quickly. She said that they had to leave their car to seek the safety of a lorry whose driver gave them and others a lift.
So when I arrived in the City of Valencia, the first indication that things were not quite right was the fact that the airport Metro train station was closed, I believe for the very first time (railtracks into and around the provine suffered damage and destruction). They had not blocked entry to the station and there was no sign about it anywhere so I bought a 48-hour ticket for €12 which unfortunately, I had not been able to use. Also in the station were a woman and a man both waiting needlessly for the train and they asked me if we could share a taxi to the centre. I had to pay an extra €8 as my share for that ride.
Before heading for my hotel, I went to have dinner at my favourite Vietnamese restaurant near the Estacio Nord (North train station). It was full and very noisy as if it was just an ordinary day but with the TV showing scenes of destruction and volunteers working. From the window, I saw a muddy car carrying a sign that showed "Ayuda humanitaria" (Humanitarian aid), the only sign that confirmed that there was indeed a humanitarian crisis elsewhere in the province.
The following morning I set off for the airport and rented a car, a black Jeep, quite high and with automatic gear. In my head, I was thinking that hopefully my choice of vehicle would be tall enough so I would be able to see straight away if water comes rushing on the road! It is very easy to get paranoid after witnessing the havoc brought by the destructive floods.
Along the highway I could see a lot of piled garbage and a few muddy cars along the way. One car was totally overturned but I could not really stop to take a photograph as I would just get in the way of traffic.
When I got to our pueblo, I was surprised to see that everything seemed okay. I passed by the Church and caught the last bit of Mass, and stopped to put a tenner in the donation box which said in Catalan "La Nostra Ajuda Amb Els Afectats" (Our help for those affected). I also bought lunch from our favourite takeaway (pollo with potatoes and pescado with arroz) nearby and then drove home.
Some of the humanitarian aid, with destroyed cars in the background.
Upon seeing our house, I was staggered to see that it had remained unscathed except for the damage on the roof of the car shelter that had been partly blown off and the broken sides were dangling. The car inside did not even suffer a scratch.
Some of the branches of our almond trees were broken and dangling on the sides so I would need to remove them. Then I noticed a few ceramic pots on the verandah had been smashed by the winds, including a large old olive jar used for preserving the fruit that I bought from the antiques market that was now in pieces.
About six huge trees in our neighbourhood had apparently fallen and a few walls crumbled from the onslaught of the wind and rain. My neighbours' son's car had been swept away by the floods at another pueblo. However, apart from all these, we seemed to have got away from the disaster lightly.
Going to the epicentre of the floods
After having a very late lunch, I tried to make my way to the other pueblos in the lower parts of Valencia province to see how they fared. I started towards the municipality of Paiporta, the epicentre of the inundation, with an elevation of 23 metres, but which was engulfed by the torrents from the Rambla del Poyo, a long gorge, that while apparently normally dry, was swiftly filled with water and overflowed across the low lying towns.
Near the border to the town I was stopped by two policemen. They said only residents, volunteers and emergency workers were allowed in so I had to drive off to the nearest town which was Massanassa (14 metres elevation).
A black Tesla car not spared by the torrent.
I had not even gotten there when I was faced with practically a wall of cars on top of each other, attesting to the strength of the floods which tossed them around like toys. I could not get down as it was a very busy road and just took video shots from the car. It was a horrible sight, despite the fact that the floods happened over 10 days ago. The sight of the piled-up cars was a reminder of the devastating flash floods which nobody was prepared for, and apparently even the warning signs of the local government came two hours too late. The text messages from the local government sent at 8pm for people to stay at home came to the recipients too late as by the time they were received, people, cars and belongings were already being swept away.
Piles and piles of mangled cars between Paiporta (epicentre of the floods) and Massanassa.
A little further up the road, as it was getting darker, I chanced upon the area used by volunteers and people helping out where they lined up foodstuff, water, nappies, soap, clothes, brushes/brooms with long handles etc for any one who needed it to just help themselves. It was very touching to see people bringing stuff and putting them down on the pile, without fanfare, without politicking, for the survivors to access. As someone said, people were helping people, with young volunteers who coordinated through social media.
Behind the piles of aid, there was a sort of grave for cars of various kinds swept and cleared to one area. Ironically, a VW billboard stood above them, promoting cars to Valencians.
There were still a lot of volunteers going to and fro, many wearing white coveralls covered by mud, with their faces also splattered by mud, and carrying their tools – long handled brushes/brooms, spades, buckets and what have you.
How Bonaire saved the day
From the house the following day, I resolved to drive up to the commercial centre in Aldaia where the biggest mall in Valencia called Bonaire stood, with its huge cinema, lots of restaurants, coffee shops, shopping, a huge supermarket called Alcampo, as well as a children’s playground. There were other huge stores in the centre such as Leroy Merlin and Decathlon to name a couple.
Behind Bonaire, cars littered the sides as the police cleared the roads.
The centre had a huge parking area above ground, but also a two level underground car park. My family and my spouse’s extended family and friends had all visited Bonaire regularly as it was the centre of entertainment for the area, and it was very convenient to have meals there. We would park usually in the underground car park to avoid the heat of the Spanish sun.
When the floods came, the area was one of the worst hit by devastation, with cars, furnitures, and other things swept away. The underground car park apparently swiftly got flooded, so that anybody in the car park would have been trapped in their cars as people tried to drive away. A news report even referred to the Bonaire underground car park as an underground grave which turned out to be incorrect as no dead body had been found inside the car park.
It turned out that Bonaire triggered their Emergency Plan at 7.55pm, before the alert from local government was sent out, and evacuated people from the car parks and moved them to safer higher areas. This was welcome news, and Bonaire hoped to reopen in the near future once all damage had been rectified.
Incidentally there were three young French men in black who it turned out came to Valencia as volunteers and were working in the Decathlon building, who asked to hitch to Lidl across the highway for their lunchbreak. I drove across scenes of devastation around the mall complex and dropped them off on the main highway. The car was left full of mud, but I did not mind, as this was my only chance to help out somehow.
The author standing by a VW billboard marketing cars, while wrecks stood underneath.
Hope for the future
Clearly people were upset at the delay in warning them of the coming floods which resulted in some 223 deaths (with some people still missing), and the delay in aid coming after the devastation. They felt abandoned by the authorities. Some even attacked the visiting King and Queen of Spain who were pelted with things and they ended up covered in mud.
But the people of Valencia and beyond came in droves to help, to clear up the mess, to brush away the mud, and most of all to bring needed humanitarian aid such as water, food, clothes, nappies and other necessities.
Aid left on the sidewalk by the public for the victims to help themselves.
Now it looked like aid was firmly at hand with the army involved in the cleaning up and clearing up, and the search for more bodies. The government had also offered thousands of Euros in financial assistance to survivors.
Nappies left on the sidewalk by the public near Massanassa for flood victims to help themselves.
It would take a while, but rebuilding Valencia is a priority, with many lessons learned and, with everyone pulling and pushing, no doubt the Valencian Community will recover in no time. And they will be better prepared if the floods ever happened again.
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