my 40 hours in the first area affected by DANA in Valencia

To avoid the A-3 and the V-30, always congested, roads transformed hours later into a mousetrap, I agree with Alberto Caparrós, ABC delegate in the Valencian Community, that the most prudent thing is to work from home and not go to the editorial office, located in the capital of Turia. The images of large waterspouts flooding the streets of the city – which has around seven thousand inhabitants – and which I receive via WhatsApp groups confirm this. It is also the story of families and friends who encountered many problems on the various access roads to their surrounding workplaces.

The situation is already unprecedented when the first intermittent power cuts begin. One of them lasts almost two hours. In the pharmacy below my house, they bring out the water with buckets, while a man tries to save his vehicle from a flooded field. “I went into all the places. “We were not prepared for this atrocity.”I am writing to the delegate. At four in the afternoon we lost mobile coverage. “The Chiva ravine has overflowed,” I managed to warn my colleagues around seven in the afternoon thanks to the apartment’s internet connection. We took the opportunity to inform my sister, who lives in another city, that we are all fine and that we are sheltering at home.

The Magro River, crossing the municipality of Turís, has already taken away a road bridge which connects the urban center – far from the river bed – to an urbanization. Shortly after, the power went out. In some areas, it will not return until Thursday noon.

To the fury with which the rain continues to fall, is added the wind. Night falls with the city completely dark and only lit by the rays that don’t stop. The calls start with knocking on my neighbors’ doors, because the doorbell doesn’t work, to make sure everything is okay. While rummaging through the drawers, my mother finds two flashlights and my father turns them on a small battery-operated radio. For more than forty hours, moving the antenna from side to side is our only way to understand what is happening just a few kilometers away. There are no more images, only the radio story of thousands of stranded people asking for help.

At 9:22 p.m., I received an alert from Civil Protection on my mobile phone, which still had battery, warning me that the province was on red alert. On my parents’ terminals, the message and accompanying beeps don’t arrive until around midnight, when the rain begins to let up.

I wake up Wednesday morning, convinced that I will be able to get to the newspaper office in Valencia, without knowing that access to the A-3 and many other roads is closed. Once again, the radio puts me in perspective on the scale of the tragedy and the death toll in the city area. The dana had dealt us a first blow, but everything that followed was beyond compare. This is where my concern begins. The rising of the sun allows us to open the doors of the houses wide and begin to value the damage, fortunately, only material: flooded cars that won’t start, ground floors covered in mud after the water has even come out of the sewers… We make sure that my uncles don’t need anything. I meet a friend on the street who is unsuccessfully searching for gasoline to start a bilge pump in his flooded cellar and many other acquaintances with the word “disaster” on their lips.

Some houses without drinking water

Walking around the city, you understand the importance of having a net to fall into when everything is falling apart. With stores closed and no possibility of cooking for those without butane gas, scenes of neighbors exchanging containers, jars of preserves or day-old bread and making cross-offers of whatever they could need take place. Some houses, although few in number, do not have drinking water. Others already have afternoon light and I can charge my phone, with the battery dead for hours.

By word of mouth, people are starting to say that there is a city point with coverageright next to the health center. I go there with my mother with a flashlight because night, once again, has arrived. Dozens of people formed a circle looking for a signal. “What company are you from?”, they ask themselves when trying to contact their loved ones. Through the brightness of the screens in the dark, I see familiar faces greeting me with a hug that you don’t expect, but that suddenly becomes the most important thing.

After several attempts, and almost in a mountainous area, the miracle happened. The terminal begins to smoke as a Civil Guard helicopter combs the area. I get over a thousand messages lost in limbo, counting all the working groups on historic days, plus friends and family who want to hear from us. But with the cuts, I can talk to my boss and my sister. This helped reduce anxiety on the second night in the dark. The dinner menu is clear: there is an urgent need to use the food in the refrigerator to avoid further waste.

Early Thursday, the queue at one of the bakeries shows that it is one of the few establishments with electricity. Of course, no card payment, just like at gas stations. On the way to Valencia by car, determined to help the newspaper, I am even more aware of the disaster. He post-apocalytic scenario of the Pista de Sillaone of the main routes into the city, and the dozens of people walking along the roads going to the affected municipalities to help me get my feet back on the ground.

On the way, I grab a blanket and tell my mother that everything is okay. You will read the message a few minutes later, when you receive a signal next to the health center. With a lot of patience, I manage to reach the ABC editorial office, located in a building next to the city’s port, where life continues as normal. There my boss waits for me, who welcomes me with a hug to continue telling a historical tragedy.