Affected by the flood of San Wenceslao in Lorca: «Ten years later, there is only a blueprint and good intentions»

The water reached up to three meters high in the Campillo area where Antonio Reinaldos lived in 2012. The San Wenceslao flood, which marked the 10th anniversary of yesterday, changed his life. He was never able to return to his house and fear kept him from the idea of ​​building one next to his parents’ house, which was also unusable after the flood. “I know what I experienced, I was about to lose my life and it can happen again because we are at the same point,” he lamented in statements to THE TRUTH.

A decade after the most tragic flood in recent history in the region of Lorca, which caused five deaths and damage of more than one hundred million euros in public infrastructure, in more than 300 homes and more than 250 farms, hardly anything has been advanced to prevent history from repeating itself. According to Reinaldos, “there is only one preliminary project” for the construction of the Béjar rolling dam and the Biznaga artificial canal. Just that and “very good intentions.”

With the flood, Reinaldos also lost his business, a thousand head of cattle drowned and only ten lambs survived from his farm, but “the important thing was not the economic damage but the lives that cannot be recovered,” he said. The affected platform will demonstrate on Sunday through the streets of Lorca to demand from the administrations the hydraulic works committed to avoid further catastrophes in the area of ​​the garden. Its president, Adelina Sánchez, said that “what we need are works carried out, that will be what will restore our calm” because the flood “changed our lives, we are very aware of the risk we run.”

He acknowledged that in the last two years the Segura Hydrographic Confederation “is moving” with the projects of the Béjar dam and the evacuation channel but “the administrative procedures are very long and do not correspond to our urgency.”

The mayor, Diego José Mateos, yesterday remembered those who died and were affected by the catastrophe and highlighted the culmination of the drafting of the projects for the construction of the Béjar rolling dam and the Biznaga evacuation channel. He recognized that the situation of risk due to flooding in the area is similar to that of September 28, 2012, he regretted “that eight years have been lost in doing nothing” for the management of these hydraulic works and announced that he will not give up the construction of the Nogalte and Torrecilla dams. The City Council is also pending the final design of the Mediterranean Corridor through the districts of Campillo and Torrecilla so that the water passages under the train platform are dimensioned to evacuate possible avenues.

The Minister of the Environment, Antonio Luengo, demanded that the Ministry of Ecological Transition “execute with maximum speed the projects to which it has committed to minimize the impact of the floods.” He stated that “we don’t know anything about the Nogalte and Torrecilla dams because they don’t appear” in the hydrological planning.

The PP spokesman, Fulgencio Gil, said that the Béjar dam project “has remained in a ‘we’ll see’, without deadlines, without date, or funding from anywhere.” He also criticized the fact that in the last three and a half years the boulevards and the canal that was built under his mandate have not been cleaned.