The Valencian Community, criticized for its late reaction

The Valencian Community had not yet finished counting its deaths in the terrible floods that occurred on Tuesday afternoon, October 29, when anger against the local government’s management of the crisis began to increase. The reason? It wasn’t until 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday that Valencians received an alert on their phones asking them not to leave their homes. By then, the south of the city had already been plunged into chaos, the Valencia ring road, the V30, and the Albufera highway, the V31, were beginning to flood and completely cover the wheels of the cars, forcing the users to abandon their vehicles. site and seek shelter at your own risk. Surrounding communities were already devastated.

“When I received this message, it was already too late for all those who, when trying to return from shopping or work, had already found themselves trapped by the floods”say Anna Martínez, 54, contacted by phone. For her part, she was safe in her home in the center of Valencia, after at 3:00 p.m. the city council of Picassent, a town in the southern suburb of Valencia, decided to evacuate the school where she is a teacher. “In Valencia there were large black clouds, but it didn’t start to rain until 7:00 p.m., which created a false sense of tranquility. What we did not know was the amount of water that fell that same day on the inland municipalities and that would arrive here suddenly in the form of a flood. »

The authorities, for their part, had all the information to prepare an evacuation plan or prohibit non-essential travel. The arrival of a cold drop with potentially dangerous consequences was not a surprise. The Spanish meteorological agency Aemet had issued its first alert five days earlier and raised it to its highest level at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

reassuring message

Shortly before 9:00 a.m., on social network X, emergency services 112 advised Valencians to avoid traveling. At 11:45 a.m. a hydrological alert was spread on social networks regarding the flooding of the Magro River, a tributary of the Júcar, whose flow had already reached 1,000 cubic meters per second and which caused, almost five hours later, enormous damage. as it passes through the municipalities of Utiel, Requena, Chiva and Buñol. At 12:20 p.m. another alert was issued due to the high flow measured in the rambla of Poyo, whose flood will destroy the Picanya bridge in the afternoon, before devastating the municipality of Paiporta, the epicenter of the tragedy with more than 40 deaths. If rivers overflowed upstream, there was no reason why they couldn’t overflow downstream.

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