For a month Maribel Albalat (València, 47 years old) does not know what day she lives on. “I have to stop and think because I never know if it is Sunday or Monday,” says the one who has been the mayor of Paiporta for three years, one of the municipalities most affected by the floods of October 29. Like many neighbors, on that Tuesday afternoon he had to save his family from the water that suddenly flooded the ground floor of their house. From the moment he saw the force with which he entered, he knew that there would be many dead in the town. “Paiporta never flooded and we were not prepared,” she comments, sitting in her office at the City Hall headquarters, very close to the Barranco del Poyo. The latest official figures speak of 45 deaths. Given the magnitude of the tragedy and the enormity of the efforts required for reconstruction, the only thing that is required is that the authorities, that is the Government and the Generalitat, “coordinate and come to an agreement.”
It’s been a month since the floods. As mayor, but also as a neighbor, how would you summarize what has happened in the last four weeks?
Are we better? Yes. Is it enough? No. Paiporta’s situation remains critical. We continue to have to provide basic needs to the population and that is what we try to do. But the impact here was total. The flood hit the entire municipality. In the end we call ourselves a town, but we have 29,000 inhabitants and that is not easy to manage for a local administration, an administration that also ran out of resources that night, like everyone else. The first few days were very, very chaotic. Then, little by little, we were able to put order and set priorities. The first was to feed the population and give them drinking water and we have been making progress in that aspect. But we need many more resources because the situation in Paiporta is chaotic due to the number of problems we have, due to the magnitude of the misfortune.
I imagine you’ve been in a loop since October 29th…
I don’t know what day it is. I have to stop and think because I never know if it’s Sunday or Monday. Normally when I see less people I say ‘I think today is the weekend…’
What memory do you have of the afternoon/night of October 29?
In the end I am the mayor, but I am also a citizen of Paiporta. I live on a fairly central street, one of the last ones that could be cleaned on public roads due to its location. That day I happened to be at home and was going out because whenever it rains we go for a walk with the deputy mayor. They were already telling me that the river was full of water, but not the amount that came later. Suddenly we realized that he was already on our street. We started putting towels because in a very innocent way we thought that with a mop we could control it. And a lot of water started to enter my house, so I took my children and my husband and we went with what we were wearing to the first floor. There was a lot of concern there because in front of my house we had some neighbors who lived on the ground floor who had no option to go upstairs and the water was up to their necks. In the end, they were able to leave.
The moment I went up and saw the force that the water was carrying where I was – which was not near the river, but 300 meters away – I already knew that there were going to be many victims because Paiporta never floods and people do not. I was prepared for that. And there are many dead: elderly people on ground floors who have not been able to get out; people who were caught on the street, others who went to get their car out of the garage and died there. And unfortunately, there are also some families, with small children. Four people have died on my street alone.
After a month, do you have an idea of what went wrong that night or in those days?
I don’t know. And the truth is that I have dedicated little time to it, because knowing it did not solve the number of problems I had and still have. All I know is that something happened. Something happened that was not planned. I don’t know if there are personal or organic responsibilities or if something has failed. But what I am clear about is that it cannot happen to us again. Important measures must be taken from now on regarding the Barranco del Poyo because there is climate change that no one can deny.
You have been elected with the PSOE. The floods have hit city councils of all political stripes. You, the mayors of ‘ground zero’, how are you experiencing or have you experienced the pulse that we have seen in these weeks between the Generalitat and the central Government?
We live it with disbelief and we ask them, we demand that they coordinate and agree. I have said from the beginning that I was not going to be blaming one or the other now because we had much more important problems. Whether it was this one or that one doesn’t help me now that my neighbor has food every night or that we have to bring him bottled water because he can’t come down from his house.
I think that institutions have to analyze how they have functioned, how they have coordinated, because there has been a lack of coordination and no, it has not helped. I think things could have been done a little more quickly. Although what has happened to us is what no one anticipated and we were not prepared for it.
We were here during the visit of the Kings to Paiporta, on Sunday, November 3, accompanied by the President of the Government and the President of the Generalitat. We witnessed what happened. At first it was also said that they were people from outside the town. But in the streets of Paipoirta the anger of the people was palpable…
We must never resort to violence, that is not justifiable. But I warned that tension in Paiporta was increasing because it took them many days to reach the town.
Who did he warn?
I warned the entourage before they arrived. Because we had a visit at the forward command post and we were with them. So when they said they were coming, I told them that they might encounter a slightly more hostile environment than they usually do and they knew it and decided to go anyway.
And when you saw what happened, what did you think?
Violent situations affect me a lot, because they are not part of my way of being and it costs me a lot. The thing is that I understood why that was happening, because I was here in my town and people stopped me and asked me where the army is, where the firefighters are, where the State is, where the Generalitat is, where they are. everyone… We were covering everything we could, bringing medicines home, hot food, doing everything we could. But I believe that people expected to wake up on the 30th with Valencia and Paiporta taken by Security Forces and Corps and by the Generalitat. And that was not possible. So they felt abandoned and it’s a feeling I understand.
Do you think there were also elements of the extreme right who acted that day?
Sure, but I am not able to say who was the one who executed, the one who acted.
Mayors are the front-line authority. Has your relationship with your neighbors changed in these weeks? Have you also had to face that same anger, that same frustration?
It’s complicated. I meet people who don’t understand it, who ask me for explanations of what is happening. I also meet many people who give me more hugs than ever.
You are a surveyor by training. The topography of your city has forcibly changed. What feelings do you also have thinking about the future?
Paiporta is not going to be the same. I have hope because I believe in the citizens of Paiporta, that if we can we will have a better Paiporta. But Paiporta will not be the same. This has now changed us for the worse. But in the future we hope that it will be redirected.
One of the big problems that Paiporta has at the moment is the closure of the schools… And there is no date for their opening.
In Paiporta all schools have been affected. When they first told us on the 7th that they were going to open on the 11th and they told us outside of Paiporta, at the advanced command post I told them: “Come to Paiporta and see it, because it seems incredible to me. If you bring an army, in addition to the army we have, if you bring another army, then maybe…” In some there is damage to the structures, and one has told us that it will not open. But then there are the repairs, the kitchens full of mud, a lot of humidity, we have to change the materials used in children’s classes, we have to do health checks… We haven’t stopped working. Then they were supposed to come [las empresas contratadas por la Generalitat] to get them ready. They come, but it is not enough. What is being done is not enough.
But the Department of Education insisted until a few days ago that they would be able to open last Monday…
They had a resolution of the 15th. Then they said “approximately”, but “approximately” we do not know if it will be one day, two or a month. We are working to be able to open them safely. If there is no security, no.
Those from secondary school have been able to start at the institute. Above all, the second years of Baccalaureate have started thinking about their university entrance exams. We have meetings all week with the educational community where the directors of the centers are, the AMPAS are also there and we make joint decisions. The first thing we said was that it was not going to open if there were no security conditions. And we all have that very clear. I have now asked them to send me lists of needs and forecasts so that we can demand that the Ministry find an external location for us, if the centers decide so.
Will we have to put up barracks?
They will have to be safe. That requires planning and that is what we are asking for Paiporta. Because there is not even one open primary and infant school.
I was in the only bakery that has opened and the owner said that she will also be the only one that stays because the owners of the others have already told her that they are going to close. And one of the things that stands out now, here as in the other towns affected by DANA, is that there are very few businesses open…
In Paiporta, zero. Until a week ago, only some pharmacies had opened due to responsibility. We had chronic or emergency medication dispensing at the health center, but pharmacies due to liability began to open, but they were the only businesses that opened this week. Some others have been encouraged, but we are talking about 15-20 establishments for a population of almost 30,000 inhabitants that had more than 400 local commercial businesses open.
Do you think many people will end up leaving town?
Don’t know. Many people have stayed or lived abroad and have come to their first residence or because they want to be collaborating and helping. And they want to know exactly how everything is resolved. The future is uncertain because this was not written anywhere. Sometimes it reminds me of the movie Impossible which speaks of a tsunami that was what no one predicted could happen. Well here it was a bit the same. In the end, that amount of water, with that strength, with that growth in such a short time, was the impossible, what no one expected could happen. And it happened to us. So now people’s feelings are very uneasy about the future.
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