Collective trauma is very difficult to overcome. And the devastation of those days will long remain in the collective memory. It’s impossible to hold back tears when we hear citizens wondering where the state was for three days, why the emergency system didn’t work properly and wasn’t warned in advance when they had already official data from the National Meteorological Agency. I myself would perhaps be writing now with different feelings, were it not for the very fair decision of the mayor of Utiel who, on Tuesday October 29 at 7:17 a.m., decided to suspend classes in his commune, thus avoiding the displacement of students , teaching staff and administrative staff, including a very close relative. It is also right to recognize the decision of my rector of the University of Valencia, decreeing the suspension of activities on Monday 28 evening, thus reducing the mobility of students and teaching and service staff, many of whom are from the area metropolitan, and therefore avoiding a certain number of misfortunes which, fortunately, did not occur.
But when grief permits, it will be a time for reflection and it would be highly desirable that this be the time to review policies and begin a new period of agreements. Because things have not been going in the right direction in Spain for a long time. The democratic debate has reached such a level of degradation that not only is it impossible to reach agreements between political actors, but the few institutional spaces available for this have been invalidated. There are no longer any spaces of trust to reach strategic agreements.
