The ferocity of the floods exposed the privacy of many houses located on the banks of the Poyo Rambla which runs through the center of Chiva. There are stairs that no longer lead anywhere and mailboxes full of letters. Its recipients, at least, can know this. “If you open the door and step inside, you will fall into the ravine”Juan Antonio said, pointing to one of the houses at the end of his street. What remains of this property and the adjacent one will have to be demolished. “Let’s hope it stays there,” this baker explains to ABC, deploring the fate of his neighbors. Demolitions also took place in other neighborhoods. He has also not been able to access his apartment, which has been sealed since that fateful October 29 marked by DANA. He is one of the 130 expelled from the Valencian city.
Hotels in the municipality immediately mobilized to respond to the emergency and offered their facilities free of charge. The Red Cross also set up a shelter at the institute. As happened with so many other needs, housing was managed thanks to the solidarity of the population and without coordination with higher administrations. The Generalitat assures that it is working to establish a protocol that will allow them to use the establishments made available by the tourist sector.
“My farm has cracks and they don’t know if they will get worse. “On the day of the flood, they took me out of the house with a rope.”
However, the majority of those affected have not used the resources activated by the different cases, although the one that is repeated the most is having found refuge in the nearest environment. This also happened, for example, with twenty people evicted from six houses in Paiporta. Being in a hotel or shelter, even if it is a relief at first, “multiplies the feeling of vulnerability”. “The support network and family ties can provide more intimacy, which It is essential to recover“, explains Conchi Navarro, psychologist with the Red Cross.
Despite this, each day that passes increases the anxiety due to the bureaucratic tangle that can befall us. “They kicked us out because it wasn’t safe. Fortunately, I have an apartment in Valencia. I come and go every day to be able to reactivate my activity as quickly as possible. We have to repair the machines that were damaged by water,” explains the owner of the El Puente oven as he cleans the workshop with his family and workers. Among the latter, there is Norma. They both live in different properties on a narrow street in Chiva, directly opposite the bakery.
While waiting for what the technicians decide, Norma She lives with friends who took her in.. “I’m better there. My farm has cracks and they don’t know if they will get worse. We left with what we wore and couldn’t go up to get anything for safety reasons. The day of the flood, they pulled me with a rope so that I could cross the street and reach my neighbor’s house,” he told ABC. Irene, this one, corroborates him while waiting for a tow truck to take his car out of the garage.
Encouraged to rebuild
So far, they haven’t asked for help. “Let’s see what the technicians and insurance companies tell us. “We have to wait a few days,” says Juan Antonio. Norma also doesn’t want to think about looking for housing, in the middle of a brutal housing supply crisis and with very high prices. The back of the building he lives in has a gaping hole visible from the city’s only remaining bridge.
Image of the destruction of the farm where Norma lives in Chiva (Valencia)
The high flow even swept away pine trees and pushed them inside homes. By chance, a little further on, at the corner of the boulevard. The house of Fátima’s parents passed the technical inspection with flying colors, which allowed them to reoccupy it. She and Juanma, her husband, were not so lucky, although they consider themselves privileged. They saved their lives, they say enthusiastically, and they already know that they will be able to return home, located in an urbanization a few minutes walk from the center of Chiva.
A raised, non-floodable area of municipal territory that has become “a lake”. The same architect who designed the property two years ago, with the particularity of being built with shipping containers, confirmed that the structure was not damaged. Of course, nothing has been spared from the inside.
“We always said that if we had to run one day, we would take the photos and our wallet,” explains Fátima. With water up to his waist, Juanma also managed to save his two dogs and his wife’s guitar. A friend returned the few clothes they managed to salvage from the mud, washed and ironed. Another friend gave them his recently deceased mother’s house. They have already settled there after spending a few days in Fátima’s sister’s apartment.
Image of the damage caused by the flood in the house of Fátima and Juanma, in Chiva (Valencia). The level reached by the water is also visible on the wall.
“Tonight was the most I slept since everything happened. Four hours,” he emphasizes. “Tuesday, a week later, I was able to sit on a couch,” jokes Juanma. “We cried a lot, but we have work and it’s very important to be able to start again. It will take us a month or five years to rebuild our house, but we will get there. Having a network saved us all,” they say, as a friend’s son helps them dismantle the kitchen counter and cabinets. They have already called a farmer from the city to come with the trailer to collect everything.
Resources available
Local businessmen
Small hotel establishments located in DANA zero zone, and which have not suffered damage, have made their rooms available to Town Halls to be able to accommodate families who have been evicted or whose accommodation is not in sanitary conditions.
Red Cross shelters
Despite the first deployment, the Red Cross is only keeping two centers open, the number of occupied beds having decreased. In Chiva, two families remain and in Torrent, much larger, there are 140 people left out of the 700 who were treated there.
Hotels and apartments
The Generalitat ensures that it has a long list of hotels and apartments available to them. In some of them, hundreds of police officers or firefighters are stationed. Only four families from Catarroja – twelve adults and one baby – from a building with structural damage had requested this resource for which no protocol has yet been established.
