A week ago there was nothing but mud and cars torn apart one on top of the other. After seven days with less rain and intense work by volunteers, dust has replaced mud and the vehicles have been removed. We return to the Orba neighborhood or Parque Alcosa de Alfafar, the first ‘ground zero’ of the Valencia flood that we visited four days after the catastrophe. Crossing the train track from Benetúser, which is still closed, the tunnel where dozens of people were trapped cars has already been cleared, but it still cannot be crossed because the firefighters continue to bail out water. The same is done by the employees of an adjacent industrial estate, where just seven days ago cars and trucks dragged by the water were piled up. Among a tide of volunteers and dodging the cranes, excavators and trucks that load the rubble, we walked to Alzira Street, which a week ago was a quagmire and was blocked by a mountain of cars. On its corner with Masanasa Street, residents swept up tons of mud with brooms and rakes and removed all their furniture and belongings covered in mud from their ground floors. Today, the panorama could not be more different: the streets are clear and the sidewalks relatively clean, but the mud that persists on the road reveals the scars of the flood. Before After In the tunnel between Benetúser and Alfafar there was a mountain of trapped cars due to the flood on November 2. Although it has been cleaned a week later, there is still water to remove. Pablo M. DíezBefore After Alzira Street, in the Orba or Parque Alcosa neighborhood, was full of mud and cars swept away by the flood on Saturday, November 2, and has been cleaned this week Pablo M. DíezAt the door of his house the man awaits us. security guard Moisés Pitarch, whom we met a week ago when he was recruiting volunteers on the train track to clean his street because official help had not yet arrived. «When I arrived at the neighborhood the morning after the flood, I was in tears. But my spirit has changed thanks to the volunteers, of course not because of the politicians. We have cleaned all this with the volunteers, who have even brought heavy machinery,” analyzes Moisés, whose car ended up stuck in the yard of a school a few meters away. Before After Moisés Pitarch, on November 2 on his street in the Orba neighborhood. Alcosa Park, when it was cut off by a mountain of cars swept away by the flood, and a week later, after the vehicles and mud had been removed. Pablo M. DíezLiving up to his biblical name, Moisés was the first to open the waters of Alfafar so that humanitarian aid could arrive and has welcomed the family of his neighbor Domenico De Luca into his home, whose ground floor apartment was flooded . «Although we have lost the material, we are going to recover it and the spirit of the neighborhood has improved a lot. Before, I didn’t know my neighbors and we didn’t even greet each other. Today, we know our names and we hug each other. The volunteers have not only brought arms and the desire to work, but also hope,” he draws as a positive conclusion. MORE INFORMATION news No Firefighters at ground zero: “Older women come to ask for food” But that does not mean that the problems of the victims have been solved, especially for those who lived on the ground floor of the buildings and lost their homes. «This was the same a few days ago; “The cleaning was on Thursday or Friday,” explains Sandra Bataller. Together with her husband, Pedro Ortega, they have had to use a pressure cleaning machine to remove the mud. For them, the hardest thing is not what they have been through, but what awaits them. “Our spirits are not very good because there is still a lot of work to be done to return to normality, which seems very far away because we don’t know anything about insurance or aid,” complains Sandra. Before After Sandra Bataller and Pedro Ortega, whose apartment It was flooded by the flood on October 29, they were cleaning it on Saturday, November 2 and, a week later, they fear that it will be left empty and that it will be ‘squatted’. Pablo M. DíezWith his family, he continues to stay in the neighbors’ apartment on the first floor, but he has already decided to go to a relative’s house to “not abuse their hospitality.” “We have to leave because we can’t live here, but we have to close the door tightly so that no squatters get in,” Sandra expresses a fear that many victims already have. The lack of rehousing in hotels or pavilions is another criticism of the administrations, whose image has been damaged by their disastrous management before, during and after the catastrophe. «We have felt very abandoned because no one has come here to help us. If it hadn’t been for the ordinary people, all of us on the ground floors would be in shit,” denounces Remedios García Martín, who has lost not only his house, but also a brother-in-law, who died by drowning. «No one has come here to ask us where we are sleeping or how we are. We have gone into my mother’s house, but there are ten of us,” she complains angrily. Before After Masanasa Street, in the Orba or Parque Alcosa neighborhood, was full of mud and cars swept away by the flood on Saturday, November 2 and has been cleaned this week. Pablo M. DíezIn the face of the lack of public support, solidarity has overflowed as much as the flood, as seen in the stands distributing food, clothing and cleaning products that abound in the streets. «We have set up a solidarity table to help elderly neighbors. The volunteers bring food and, with my children and my neighbor, we take it to their houses,” says Khadija Attichou Serghini on Alzira Street. On the corner with Masanasa, another neighbor, José, announces the arrival of “the brothers of the Evangelical Church of Almería and La Puebla, who bring help and Bibles.” In this dark week in Alcosa Park, a lot has changed because the Dust has replaced mud and mountains of retired cars. What remains the same is the outpouring of solidarity from neighbors and volunteers.
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