When the power went out at eight in the afternoon, Mariola began to think that perhaps the rain could be more serious than it seemed. He had arrived home, on Gómez Ferrer Street in Alfafar, a while earlier and had taken advantage of the time to study. Her mother Mari Carmen, also at home, was reading next to her while she waited for her husband, who was already back from Paterna, where he works. “It wasn’t raining much,” explains Mari Carmen, “so the alert message at 8:11 p.m. “It surprised us a lot, since it didn’t talk about a flood.” In fact, shortly after, at 8:29 p.m. Mariola recorded a video from the balcony in which the cars can be seen driving down the street, while a fine rain falls that barely forms a puddle between their wheels. However, four minutes later, the water already covered more than half a meter. In the third one, which he recorded at 8:54 p.m., the water was already dragging the cars down the street as if they were a float. “In just twenty minutes, chaos ensued in the street,” says Mariola. It surprised everyone. “In the supermarket on that corner,” he indicates with a gesture, “there were four employees who began to close when the water rose, but then we couldn’t see what happened to them.” Indeed, in the video at 8:33 p.m. you can see them illuminated by the strong light coming from the store, the only lit place on the street. In the one 21 minutes later, the place is completely dark and flooded, while the cars that come floating down the street hit the walls. It is the uncertainty in which the neighbors of this curious street that two towns share – the numbers odd ones, like Mariola and Mari Carmen’s apartment, are Alfafar, while the even ones belong to the municipality of Sedaví – and which has become one of the emblematic images of these floods, with dozens of cars, caravans and old junk piled up in several layers, until reaching the second floor of the nearby buildings. An image that yesterday was the cover of ABC.Deads hugging the streetlights. From that moment on everything was tension and screams. Those who were able to get out of the cars tried to save themselves by clinging to the streetlights or whatever they could. “Right down here, there was a man clinging to the fence asking for help, the water was already over five feet and he couldn’t reach the first floor windows,” says Mari Carmen. “He was lucky that the water dragged two cars, which when they collided with the streetlight, they ended up one on top of the other, he was able to climb this all-terrain vehicle,” he explains, pointing to the front page of the newspaper, “and the neighbor on the first floor was able to rescue him from the balcony.” . “He spent the night there,” Mari Carmen concludes the harrowing story that this time has a happy ending. From his balcony you can still see the shoe print that that desperate man left on the neighbor’s air conditioner when he was lifted into the apartment. Related News standard No “There is no water in the garage, Dad, let’s go down to get the cars.” : the call that ended with seven people drowned Alberto CaparrósHe had the luck that others lacked. “A little further down, reaching the square, they found a dead woman hugging a street lamp,” says Xema, who along with two friends, Jorge and Carlos, checks the pile of cars in case any of them were still there. the body of its driver. From a window, a man in his sixties, Ángel, directs the search. Upon hearing the story, he says that his son also “was able to rescue a man from the balcony, the owner of that car, the insurance guy.” Xema and Carlos jump like a spring when they hear Ángel’s words. «Which one, which one?», they ask in unison, insistent and nervous. “That one down there, the one from RACE,” he answers. “Thank goodness!” the young people sigh with relief. “It was the only one that we had not been able to check because it has another car on top and a lot of furniture that was washed away by the water from the workshop next door and we were afraid that its occupant was still inside,” they say. In a small consolation in a dark search which, unfortunately for them, has already had several results that they refuse to describe as “positive.” «We have already found four. This morning the bodies were still covered with aluminum blankets waiting for the judge to arrive for the removal,” they say with regret. To the question of what led them to undertake this work, they answer without hesitation: “No one has come here, if the neighbors did not mobilize we would still be the same as on Tuesday, or much worse.” They began the same Wednesday morning, when few Hours after the flood, the water began to recede and allowed the streets to return, cut off by piles of cars, caravans and even a small boat, which was carried away by the current. Their objective was first the living: «From that house there we took a couple in their eighties with their daughter with Down syndrome, it is a ground floor and the flood caught them when they were getting ready to go to sleep. They were able to go up to the terrace, but they spent the night practically naked.”Looting They also denounce that the looting began even before the rescues. “In that supermarket there – they say, pointing to the same one where Mariola recorded those four women who “disappeared” in a matter of minutes – they were already leaving at four in the morning with hams.” “A pharmacy next door has been looted even with the owner inside,” Jorge adds in Xema’s story. “It’s a shame, it’s sad how in the face of a misfortune like this there are people who bring out the worst in human beings,” they conclude. The improvised rescue trio continues their search, but first they ask: “How many dead have we already?” “The latest news speaks of about 150,” we can answer with the little information we have at that time of the afternoon. “Mare de Dèu!” they exclaim. “The last we heard yesterday it was about fifty, but there will be more, many more.” And they say goodbye that the City Hall parking lot is still flooded and no one has been able to enter. «There are two basements and when water started to enter, people went crazy and ran to get the cars out. “There was a line to get out when the body of water arrived.” Those 21 disastrous minutes that Mariola’s videos show. Related News standard No The before and after New images from space show the dimension of the catastrophe Patricia Biosca “The worst of all is the misinformation we have,” they say as they move away to continue his tireless search. And since Tuesday at 8 p.m., most of the population has no electricity or water. Also the coverage, which although it was partially recovered, was of no use when the cell phone batteries ran out. “We were still able to find out something about my husband,” says Mari Carmen. “He got stuck on the V-30 and when the water began to cover the cars, they were told by Civil Protection to get on a truck,” he says. “Then they helped them get to the footbridge that crosses the new channel of the Turia and they took them to the other side, to Valencia,” he continues. Contrary to what it may seem, the new Turia channel, where the river was diverted after the flood that devastated Valencia in 1957, was not the cause of the flood, but a barracks, the Poyo, which runs south of Alfafar. It did not overflow, but it was close to it – the channel is 175 meters wide, although according to records it withstood the highest flow in its history since it opened in 1973. “My husband told me that the biggest moment of panic that night was when he was passing through the pedestrian walkway over the riverbed when he saw how hard the water was coming down,” says Mari Carmen. Once in Valencia, the help from Protection ended. Civil. «My husband tried to get a taxi to take him to his parents’ house in Paterna, but there was no way. In the end a friend was able to take him. Since then we have not seen him, we hope that tomorrow he can get here and we will go away with my in-laws for a few days,” she says hopefully. It’s getting late, and it’s time for Mariola and Mari Carmen to eat the hamburger and potato omelette they have on the table. “I went to a friend’s house who has electricity and I was able to cook something and charge my cell phones,” Mariola confesses. It is time to restore their peace of mind and they can enjoy their first hot meal since Tuesday.
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