Four years in exile from Torrevieja

The Oriol Municipal Center was inaugurated by the users and the people of Orihuela with the Mayor being the Hon. Mr. Monserrate Guillén Sáez. April 9, 2012 » Thus reads the plaque that is still preserved inside that Palmeral building where time seems to have stopped in September 2019. Along with the images of the cars piled up along the Abanilla boulevard, the other snapshot of that terrifying cold drop was that of the users of the Oriol Center rescued by firefighters with water up to their necks. Four years have passed since that moment that has been recorded in the retinas of the parents. Four years of exile in the Delfina Viudes center in Torrevieja and one question: When will their children finally be able to return home?

“The most powerful warriors are patience and time,” they say from the Ampa of the Oriol Center, “the most forgotten victims of DANA.” 67 people, 32 of them inmates, enjoyed the now dilapidated center. An ideal home until the day the flood took everything away. “That day, not only were the facilities and their workshops lost, but also their home, their house, their most beloved belongings, their memories and the hardest thing, they all lost a family,” the parents lament in an open letter.

Exasperated, they trust that words will give way to will and institutional involvement. At the end of the last term, the municipal executive PSOE-Cs submitted to the plenary session a credit modification necessary to put out to tender the repair works in the center of Palmeral. All political groups voted in favor. After the elections, the current PP-Vox government has still not issued the expected contract. “It is difficult to understand that the works do not begin if there is a project and a loan,” the parents protest.

Users also come from going through a difficult year. What remains their provisional home, the Delfina Viudes, was the subject of works shortly before the elections, but the work was left half done. The change of hands in the Generalitat, owner of the building, frustrated this reform due to the firm opposition of the Torrevieja Consistory to its reform to house a center for minors as planned by the Botanic.

Some unfinished work that has deteriorated the quality of life of its Oriolano residents today. In a joint visit, the mayors of Orihuela and Torrevieja, Pepe Vegara and Eduardo Dolón, acknowledged in July that the conditions were far from optimal and criticized that, in the current state, users accused “lack of privacy.” Last week, parents received another bucket of cold water. The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, visited Orihuela, but under his arm he did not bring the other great promise that they expect: the rehabilitation of the old Orihuela asylum. Purchased by the previous Consell de Ximo Puig, it was promised that it would be his new residence.

Last April, the then Oriolana councilor, Carolina Gracia, in statements to this newspaper, explained that the City Council would not begin work in the center of Palmeral until the Generalitat did the same in the asylum. All with the aim, she said, that the return of users to Orihuela was complete.

Be that as it may, the house remains, for the moment, unswept and the latest news on the matter came this week. Pepe Vegara met with the Consell delegate in the province, Agustina Esteve, and only a brief note emerged from the meeting. «The mayor has sent the delegate a list of relevant issues that require the involvement of the autonomous Administration. Among these issues, the adaptation of the old asylum to be able to accommodate the units that need the Oriol Center stands out.

More words as time passes and patience runs out almost at the same time as facilities that, the parents’ association (Ampa) warns, “if they continue to deteriorate, there will be problems with the credits available.”