THE Mayor of Paiporta, María Isabel Albalatrevealed that on the afternoon of the flooding caused by DANA, he had called by telephone around 7 p.m. the government delegate in Valencia to inform her that his city “was being flooded, that there was no “wasn’t prepared for this and was going to do it.” a lot of people are dying, who were already dying,” to which the delegate responded, “I transferred him.”
The Government delegate had already called the Valencian councilor responsible for the emergency area, Salomé Pradas, up to three times that day, offering her resources to address the DANA risk and without her accepting them. Asked about the appeals of the government delegate to the Valencian councilor in an interview with TVE, the mayor of Paiporta explained that she could only respond to the appeal that she had launched herself. “Around 6:30 p.m. the water started coming into my house and we tried to stop it, but around 7:00 p.m. we went up to the first floor because it was huge. I made every call I could there -down and like I had the delegate’s phone number, I told her what was happening.. So many people were going to die because Paiporta was not prepared. We were up to our necks in water and please come because we were drowning.“, he detailed.
“This call is true and I am told that from then on the alert was activated, I no longer know. But I made this call“, he added. The alert launched by the Generalitat was launched almost an hour after this call. “The alert came at 8:15 p.m., no one told us about the ravine. “If they had warned us, we could have saved many more people.”he insisted. She also explained that she had not been summoned to previous meetings with mayors whose municipalities could be affected by DANA.
Paiporta, west of the city of Valencia, was one of the areas hardest hit by the effects of DANA, with dozens of deaths. The water overflowed from the Poio ravine, causing a silent tongue of water that reached Paiporta. Emergency crews are working to clean the streets, even removing personal belongings. Albalat acknowledged that although the situation has improved, it is still not “enough”, he is asking for more help and resources because they have lost everything. “We don’t even have police cars,” he said. “We are a little better but we are so bad that…” lamented the mayor.
