The water overflowed again, wilder than ever in these Mediterranean latitudes. And we are counting corpses in several Valencian regions which, according to common sense, could have been avoided if the warning about the floods caused by DANA had arrived in time.
Failed emergency flood prevention by DANA
It was impossible to avoid the devastation, but it could have prevented so many deaths.
For decades, in some houses in the historic center of Valencia, plaques have been kept indicating the level reached by the water during the disastrous flood of October 14, 1957. “The flood has reached this point,” one could read on these walls. It wasn’t surprising. This flood, engraved in the memory of Valencian society, caused more than 80 deaths and enormous damage. Another day in October (always October), 67 years later, the new Turia canal, – a work, between Quart de Poblet and Pinedo, that the Valencians helped to pay for with special taxes and these 25 cent stamps du Plan Sur -, saved the city from a new flood like a gigantic protective arm. A picture of what the river looked like at its mouth reflects this very well.
General view of the new Turia canal filled with water due to the cold drop suffered by the Valencian Community
However, so close to the city, the neighborhoods of Pinedo and La Torre, the Horta Sud region and part of the Ribera Baixa were not spared by the “ravine” that descended from the Requena plain. Utiel and Camp. of Turia. The devastation caused by floods is a dramatic subject that we Valencians have too often discussed, whether they come from the Túria, the Xúquer, the Segura or the Chiva ravine. Also on the Ribera, plaques were placed in certain places after the “swamp” of 1982, in which there were around thirty deaths, as well as after the other Xúquer flood of 1987. “The water is arrived here.”
There is therefore a memory of this type of disaster. But none had until now caused such a number of victims, at least 155 dead at the time of writing these lines. As José Ángel Núñez, from Aemet, pointed out in response to Carlos Navarro’s questions, “the majority of people died in areas where it did not rain”, which should give rise to “reflection” and raises the question that is on the lips. from everyone: Why did the alert on cell phones come late so that people wouldn’t leave the house? The chronology of the disastrous day of October 29 (always October) published by Sergi Pitarch in this newspaper reveals that the emergency structure of the Generalitat Valenciana, with President Carlos Mazón at its head as “single command”, a condition granted by the law, was not able to warn citizens in time of the imminent danger.
And many people remember that, without as much technical means, nor as much meteorological information, nor as many command structures, the inhabitants of Alzira and its region knew in 1982, at least within a few hours, the danger that the All Dam represented. to be able to take shelter. The devastation then was enormous and there were many deaths, but nothing compared to the exceptional tragedy occurring today. The testimonies collected by Laura Martínez, Carlos Navarro and Lucas Marco are frightening: mud, millions of euros of destruction and no light in what is called “ground zero”. Paiporta, Catarroja, Massanassa, Benetússer, Aldaia, Sedaví, Alfafar… Mountains of cars, vans, containers and objects of all kinds piled up in the streets like broken toys. But above all deaths, too many deaths.
Albal Street in Paiporta
The water is brutal when it rushes. We know this well. Thus, while the troops prove incapable, not only of treating all the survivors, but also of collecting all the dead, a thought returns to the minds of the Valencians: “This should not have happened”. It was difficult to imagine that the poor reputation of the PP regional governments for disaster management could be overcome (everyone remembers the case of the Valencia metro accident in 2006), but it happened . As Raquel Ejerique writes in her column, Valencia, devastated by a “tsunami”, wonders why. Of course, the citizen who recounted his experience asked this dramatic question: “I was gulping water in the car when the alert came. » And we all wonder that.
Aspects of the management of this tragedy will be known, they already are. Like the fact that Mazón abolished the Valencian Emergency Unit, a coordination mechanism created by his predecessor, Ximo Puig, arguing that it was a “beach bar”. We know that early warnings save lives. That the University of Valencia suspended classes and that the Provincial Delegation of Valencia closed its work centers because of DANA six hours before the SMS alert was sent to the population. That is to say, there were heads of institutions who were capable of making decisions on time. Why didn’t the Generalitat Valenciana do it?
The explanation perhaps lies in the precise way in which Mazón approached the formation of his Consell and in the joy with which he ceded the emergency zone to the far right of Vox. The advisor of this formation, Elisa Núñez, took months to relieve those responsible for emergencies inherited from the government by the Pact of Botanists and who, logically, wanted to leave. He seemed unsure of what to do with these responsibilities. In July, when Vox panicked and broke the government pact, Mazón ceded powers to the Minister of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, of the PP, who does not seem to have been able to take the reins with the slightest efficiency.
From the environment of the Valencian administration, as I write this, the impression is increasingly emerging that there were problems in making decisions when they should have been taken during the management of the worst storm in the history of Spain. Something essential in these kinds of circumstances. We still cannot say “the flood is no longer here” because everything indicates that this catastrophe will not be measured by the height reached by the water in its brutal passage, nor by the failure of the policies responsible for preventing it. face, but by the intolerable body count. That heads will finally roll and that responsibility for this enormous disaster can be fully purged seems at this time to be little retaliation and little consolation for so much pain and so much anger.
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