At first glance, it seems that the 4×4 of Jorge Caurin (32 years old) is one of the cars that became unusable after the flood. But its owner managed to recover it and prepare it to participate in the daily reconstruction of Benetússer, a town located five kilometers from Valencia and which is still recovering from the damage caused by DANA.
Between fire trucks, army vans and cars from the Red Cross or other social organizations, Jorge’s 4×4 managed to find a place in the city traffic, delivering food to the families and seniors who live alone, towing other vehicles and transporting volunteers from a city. at the other, at a time when traffic and travel by private car remain very exceptional.
The vehicle was buried by the flood. Its owner claims that the ground in which it was parked reached two meters in height on the night of October 29. Although 14 days have passed since the disaster, it seems difficult that traces of DANA could disappear at some point from the car’s upholstery. The car is still full of mud. There is sand on the floor mats, pedals, steering wheel and mirrors. The seats are covered with garbage bags to prevent the driver and the neighbors who accompany him on his trips from getting even more dirty.
A mechanic friend of Jorge’s helped him restart the engine. “He took apart and cleaned the spark plugs and injectors. He put him in tune. They changed the oil, they tried to start it and after two days the car started and until today,” this neighbor of Benetússer remembers this Tuesday as he makes deliveries and transports food from one end of the city to the other.
More than 240 euros of gasoline
The 4×4 was relaunched on November 1st and hasn’t stopped since. “The first thing I did was take the sunken SUV from the friend who had fixed my car,” he says. Jorge modified the physical education classes he taught at a local institute until the day of DANA for the trips he makes daily in his vehicle. It is operational from dawn to dusk, although on certain nights it also organizes neighborhood patrols to prevent looting in the municipality’s businesses and basements. He claims to have spent more than 240 euros on gasoline.
“We have a dose of adrenaline that keeps us up and awake,” explains Borja, a neighbor of Jorge, who has accompanied him on all his trips since the first day after the flood. “And active,” adds the owner of the 4×4, who emphasizes that during the first days, his car allowed him to reach “places where vans and flat-wheeled cars could not reach.” “We could access houses covered in mud. In Catarroja there was a centimeter and a half of mud, if you didn’t put four-wheel drive you wouldn’t even pass”, explains this well-known teacher in the municipality because he also gives percussion lessons in Dolxaraina. a musical association in the region.
This Tuesday, Jorge and Borja delivered food to several families and elderly people. As soon as they arrived to collect the bags of food, a group of volunteers from Almería came to welcome them. They have been helping Benetússer for a week and living at the Blasco Ibáñez school, which has become one of the operational centers in the area where firefighters and volunteers sleep. Classes have not yet resumed at the education center and the patio is full of tables where they organize the donations they receive.
This is where the journey of these two inhabitants of Benetússer begins. They have already loaded more than a dozen bags containing perishables, soap and toilet paper into the 4×4 trailer. A few meters from the school, María José, a woman around 70 years old who has known the owner of the vehicle since she was little because she studied with her son, stops him. “Where are you going? “If I take it home,” asks the physical education teacher, thinking that this woman has gone out to get food because she walks with bags in her hands. “Let’s take some of vitamins, let’s go to the sun”, replies the woman, emphasizing that she has everything at home, but she is a little afraid of what she has seen in the media and does not know if she can use the water coming out of the tap.
The first stop is one of the city’s arteries. There, even though the educational center assured them that there was a woman who could not leave the house and who needed food, they could not find it. A young woman who has not placed an order opens the door. From the second visit, it was a success. On this second attempt, another woman, Dolores, opens the door in a bathrobe and slippers, thanking Borja who was responsible for bringing up the food. Her next-door neighbor opens the door for her when she hears a noise and takes advantage of the visit to ask who she should call so that food can also be delivered to her. He is told that everything is centralized at public schools.
All buildings have open gates, in some cases the flood has washed away doors and windows. None of the people visited by this neighborhood group have the elevator working. The new normal has already invaded the landings, where the inhabitants of these houses have gotten into the habit of leaving aside the high plastic boots they use to walk the streets of their town.
After several trips around the commune, several greetings to the students who stopped to speak to Jorge and the delivery of the bags that had been given to them, these two inhabitants of the commune returned to the base, that is what they called the tables. which they have placed in a room which is located under their building and where they organize, with the tenants of their building, a delivery point for cleaning and hygiene products. They created a WhatsApp group to organize themselves, they call themselves “Les Voisins”.
At this point, they meet every day. There is always someone. It became a way of helping each other, but also of supporting each other. Here, they chat and are accompanied. They say three local residents died the night of the flood while trying to get their car out of the garage.
“The lives of these families were shattered,” remembers Juan Carlos, also a tenant of the building on rue Horta, and who did not stop his life for DANA. He continues to work on the other side of the river, where no damage has been done. He spent the night of October 29 there because his wife warned him not to return home. Every day when he returns to Benetússer and crosses the bridge, tears come to his eyes as he sees the consequences of the disaster on the road. “Whoever hasn’t come doesn’t know what’s here,” adds this neighbor, who continues to go every afternoon to the iron warehouse where he has worked for years.
Neighbors in the region who have not suffered major losses are trying to adapt to this new situation. Benetússer is trying to recover from the disaster while his neighbors continue to remove the mud, the lucky ones have put aside the brooms and are already using pressurized water guns. Jorge walks among volunteers dressed in white Epis, workers with wheelbarrows, graveyards of piled-up scrap cars, stores with broken blinds and excavators continuing to remove the mud. However, faced with this scenario, this teacher prefers to be on the street. “I feel weird when I come home,” he says.
