“The video of the boy in water up to his waist has appeared on the French national channel, I don’t know how it got there, but all my acquaintances in Grenoble called me from France this morning to find out if he was still alive,” says Laurent, owner, surprised. of a well-known French restaurant in one of the picturesque alleys that lead to the seafront of Sitges, on the south coast of Barcelona.
Images of some neighborhoods of this elegant and tourist town flooded by water appeared yesterday afternoon on multiple national news programs – sometimes, as this journalist was able to verify, erroneously attributed to the ravages of DANA in Valencia – magnifying the destruction that They have not deviated from what usually happens when it rains torrentially in Sitges, something usual in autumn and spring.
There are also some videos of gigantic waves hitting houses on a coast that appears to be Mediterranean. They are not from Sitges: here, despite the 98 liters per square meter collected in 24 hours, the sea has remained relatively calm and without waves, resulting in few effects other than the flooding of the catamaran and scooter park of the yacht club , which was closed anyway due to the alerts.
The city has perfectly resisted the ravages of the disturbance, which has left almost 200 liters per square meter of successive DANA’s in a week. The orography favors it, at least in the majority of neighborhoods where the more than 30,000 inhabitants of this residential town live, which is ceasing to be a town and becoming a high-end dormitory city, with the consequent increases in rental prices.
Streets such as Espalter, Bassa Rodona or Rafael Llompard are actually streams that channel the large flows of fallen rain towards the sea. “Since cars are prevented from parking there, the damage has been greatly minimized,” emphasizes Jesús, who lives in a low house in the historic center of Sitges. He assures that, despite the intense rains at night and in the morning, his interior patio “has held up well.”
Floods at a street intersection in Terramar
The only serious effects, such as the spectacular flood that appears on television, and that was recorded by an amateur meteorologist from the Garraf region, occurred in the remote neighborhood of Terramar, 3.5 kilometers from the rock on which it sits. the center of the municipality. There, in what for centuries were orchards and vineyards on a flood plain, there is an intersection of several streets adjacent to the Me Sitges Terramar Hotel that invariably floods with each disturbance of a certain magnitude, due, according to the neighbors, to the low slope. of its drains, a few meters from the sea.
In this case, given the amounts of water that fell, the crossing became a considerable pond and provided space for the videos. “Yesterday I was left with the car stuck; Water must have gotten into my engine trying to cross,” says Xavier, who explains that he had to call the tow truck, which also couldn’t get through. Today, after the morning rains, which were less than those of yesterday Sunday afternoon, the street is already dry and Xavier is removing his car.
A gray Volvo parked next to one of the luxurious mansions in the neighborhood has not had the same luck, with prices in some cases of five million euros for the undeveloped land. One of the numerous pine trees that line the streets of Terramar fell and burst its sidewalks with its roots.
“There have been several who have fallen here,” says José, who explains that he has been sent to repair the electricity in a garage that has flooded. “The water has entered several parking lots in the area,” he adds. This journalist was able to see yesterday how firefighters were bailing out water with pumps in a large garage belonging to a luxury apartment community.
Some mansions were also flooded, such as Marta’s, located in one of the corners of the flooded area that appears in the videos. “Every time the intersection floods, water enters us and gets into the garage,” he explains. He also reveals that they bailed out the water with a pump and that “this morning the mayor came [Aurora Carbonell] and he has promised us that he will solve the problem.”
The overflowing stream and the isolated golf
Finally, Marta reveals that some neighbors have told her that part of the problem “comes from the stream.” It refers to the stream of Sant Pere de Ribes, the town just five kilometers inland from Sitges that collects the waters in its ravine and sends them towards the coast. According to this theory, part of the torrent would overflow into Earthsea.
The river passes about 300 meters further to the south and is accessed by an internal path that leads, crossing the bed, to the Terramar Golf Club and the beaches of the old L’Atlántida nightclub, now in ruins. Only the first 100 meters of the path are accessible, then, after a slight slope, the path leads to an important water reservoir that transports the flow of the stream, which slides spectacularly overflowing with its brown water.
The two parts of the golf course, on both sides of the road, as well as the entrance to the club parking lot, are inaccessible. The Terramar Golf Club is isolated. After a few minutes, Florance, born in France but “resident in Sitges for 23 years”, arrives at the limit point of the path. He has come to take snapshots of the stream with its chocolate-colored water. “It is more spectacular than when the storm of September 9,” he says. Soon other residents arrive, with their bicycles or jogging, all with the intention of taking their photos, probably to share them on Instagram or X.
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