From the tragedy of the Campanar fire to the terror of Dana in the province of Valencia, only 250 days have passed. Between the anguish of losing everything and the despair of an uncertain future, solidarity and camaraderie make their way through improvised heroes and heroines, such as the janitor Julián, who saved dozens of lives from the burning building, and now he is followed Paula Michelenaa young woman from the town of Paiporta that with his Hope Green Jeep Wrangler He cleared different streets so that neighbors could leave their homes.
He will never forget what he experienced, so he believes. On the fateful Tuesday, he was already at home when he began to receive videos of the completely overflowing ravine. “We had no idea what was to come, we believed that the water level would drop quickly,” explains the Salvadoran driver, who clearly remembers “a tsunami with three meter waves» traveling the roads of Paiporta. Fifteen minutes later, in different groups with people from the municipality they began to guess the nature of the catastrophe and around eight in the afternoon, before the alert reached all mobile phones, the flow of cloudy water was already descending fiercely down their street. , one-way only.
On Via Porvenir, where he lives, the river level reached one and a half meters. He violently entered the courtyard of the building but did not reach the first floor. «Everything has been destroyed, full of mudand what saved us in this area was the Mercadona that is right next door,” he justifies, since a large amount of water accumulated in the garages of the large supermarket that relieved the rest of the road.
Once he woke up from a bad dream, he verified that his green Jeep was in good condition, he got to work and with ropes began to drag different vehicles that occupied the road, some upside down or pressed against the wall and others mounted on each other, In this way helping the work of the agents of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) displaced since Wednesday in the Valencian towns affected by Dana. «I did it to give them a hand, they can’t cope and those of us who have big cars must lend a hand,” says Paula.
Image taken from Paula’s car in Paiporta
The young woman explains that the mobilization of all-terrain vehicles begins to be “immense” after her first life-saving intervention. Many of them arrived from other nearby towns and from the city to Valencia, whom the National Police and Civil Guard allow to travel without any type of restriction along the CV-400 so that they can enter to help remove the hundreds of useless cars. and clear the streets of a place that offers a post-apocalyptic appearance. Higinio, one of Paula’s neighbors, has managed to leave Paiporta with his two children after two harrowing days thanks to, as the title of Izal’s song says, ‘the woman in green’which has opened the way for them through chaos.
A saving police
A few meters away, at the intersection of Picanya and Sant Antoni streets, Leo keeps wondering how this tragedy happened. At his late eighties, ironically, he feels part of a “privileged generation” that has seen “a turn of the century, another of a millennium, Spain proclaim itself world champion” and, finally, “a misfortune at the door of your house that I never thought I would live.” While lighting a cigarette he gets emotional, as he contemplates the bar where he was drinking coffee minutes before the world fell apart.
He was “so calm” with his cut when he started hearing screams. He looked out the door of the establishment and saw people running, which scared him. At that moment, he approached a local police officer, who warned him of the arrival of a runaway river from the ravine and showed him the way to return home while his feet began to get wet. «If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. saved my life», celebrates Leo, who has not seen his son for four days, who lives in South Korea and who had traveled to Valencia for the operation of his grandson, whom he has not yet seen. “I just want this to happen as soon as possible and to be able to hug them,” says the neighbor.
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