Sunday, 3 November 2024

Living In A Disaster Zone - A Week In Valencia

Volunteers en masse heading from the city centre to Paiporta on foot
(courtesy of Sandra Mayoral)

The past week has been one of the most programmatic periods of our lives. It started last Tuesday, when we saw on the weather apps and in social media news postings that our region was bracing itself for a pummelling. We were just unaware of the extent of the thrashing we were all going to get. At a quarter of an hour before 5pm on Tuesday 29 October, we left our office in El Cabanyal, a suburb on the western side of the city bordering the sea, and walked the 350 metres to the school which the children attend.

We picked them up as usual, but instead of heading to the café to decompress and catch up on news, we hurried to the car, parked a way away beyond our office. The children usually complain and protest if we miss out on this, but even they had understood that there was something amiss in the ether. It was airless, despite the strong wind, obviously because of the rise in humidity. I was sweating, although it was comparatively cool. They were all very compliant and sat in the car without so much as a sigh. We took the usual route northwards out of the city and along the coast to La Pobla de Farnals, the settlement next to ours, so that I could buy some provisions for a day or two.

That was a good decision, as will shortly become evident.

As we drove, outside the car it was ferocious – blasts of wind virtually lifted the car off the road. There was debris already floating about and being thrust into the air by the gusts. Waves on the sea had been building for a few days. I had noticed the choppy waters, but on the way home they were viciously battering the rocks, sending chutes of water ten or fifteen metres into the air. All of us were taken aback by the situation outside the car. So when we arrived in the relative calm of the supermarket car park, I temporarily forgot about the impending nastiness. Driving back, I would usually leave the car in the gated open-air car park below our building, but I decided to put it in the underground facility. It seemed like a lot of others had the same idea.

Our apartment in El Puig de Santa María lies right on the seafront, and we were about to have a front-row seat for the evening’s weather show. This would be the day that the climate emergency announced its presence in our here-and-now, and its intention to stick around until we as a human race do something about it. The sickening propaganda and misinformation surrounding meteorological extremification has made it easier for fossil fuel multinationals to feed conspiracy theorists and their acolytes with false data. It is amazing how easy it has been to find gullible souls keen to denounce cleaner fuels. Well it is becoming harder and harder for these useful idiots to keep on disseminating their deceptive and damaging nonsense.

The view from a window further back from the front in our apartment

Our fifth-floor apartment facing the sea was being severely battered by the wind. Sand was swirling, smearing the windows along with the intermittently heavy rain. Huge puddles were appearing on the camper van zone next to our building, and the palm trees were forming semi-parabolas virtually leaning into each other. The glass in the frame of our sliding terrace door was flapping inwards with the eruptions of wind, so I put the shutters down on all the windows to mitigate any damage from a really powerful gust, and hoped for the best. The shutters were also under severe strain, but better they take the initial hit rather than the glass.

The whistling through the cracks in the antiquated windows here was compounded by the ear-piercing bagpipe noises being generated by the thin gaps above the terrace door in Milda’s bedroom, where a roller blind usually sits. I patched it up with sticky tape and hoped it remained intact at least until the morning. With the children in bed, we started asking the school for instructions. I had already decided they wouldn’t be going in on Wednesday, but I was banking on the school making that official. Late in the evening, we received confirmation of this. As Friday was a national holiday anyway, we would be told a day later that all schools, colleges and universities in the area would be closed for the entire week.

We stayed up until late hoping that the turmoil outside would die down, but it took a long time to abate. The sea was a fulminating expanse of volatility, higher than I had ever seen it. There is usually very little tide in the Mediterranean, but that night, the sea even came up to the First Aid hut just below the promenade. In the morning, several of the palettes that make up the floor outside the hut would be displaced. I wasn’t worried about putting the car in the underground parking area, but it did play on my mind a couple of times.

We managed to get to sleep and hoped the situation would be calmer in the morning. It was, but there was evidence of the night’s wrathful proceedings everywhere. Tree branches strewn far and wide, plastic bags dancing in the road, silt amassed in places, huge muddy puddles in the ubiquitous dips, mopeds and bikes overturned, awnings ripped, fences splintered and torn from their moorings, discoloured water in the sea, pieces of furniture in random places, cars covered in leaves, sand and bark, or dented from raining debris. Our own windows were covered in sand and wet dirt, thrust from below.

I took a walk around the block and down to the beach. The sea was still in a state of agitation, but a great deal less than the day before. I resolved to stay at home for as long as necessary – subsequent government warnings tended to agree with this. However, as it looked like we would be there for the long haul, I decided to do a bigger shop. Returning to the supermarket, it was clear a lot of other people had the same idea. In the end, I left with a full trolley and an unrelenting desire to rest. Luckily for us, the children weren’t in the mood to get active either.

Wednesday passed fairly uneventfully. We took the children to the playground in El Puig main town just to have a run about and lose some of the pent-up energy from being sequestered at home. It also gave Bonny Bee and me some time to talk about our future. A few recent setbacks had persuaded us that maybe we weren’t in the right place, and the activities of the last 48 hours had kind of confirmed that.

Over the coming couple of days, the news filtered through about the extent of the storm. It was worse than anything that even the most depraved mind could imagine. And the area it had affected had been completely devastated. But worse than that, many of the authorities had not reached a lot of the places most seriously affected. It was becoming clearer and clearer that there was a serious dereliction of responsibility. The French emergency squads had reached some suburbs before even a local uniform had passed.

And what is even more of an indictment on the Spanish and Valencian authorities is the fact that the French squads had at first been told they weren’t needed. The army was deployed a full three days later. The vast majority of the help has come from the initiative of the citizens. Spanish TV talk shows are full of angry and distressed citizens eviscerating the national and regional governments for dragging their heels for so long, and for not taking precautionary measures beforehand.

Courtesy of Rosa Hoynck van Papendrecht

In all of this, there is a personal factor. Everyone who lives in Valencia knows someone from the affected areas. We all have friends or colleagues living in the western suburbs. One of mine hadn’t responded to my calls and messages for two days, but he resurfaced on Sunday morning, telling us he was exhausted and overwhelmed.

Although we were told by the authorities to remain where we were to keep the roads clear, there was a certain feeling of restlessness building in me. When the invasion of Ukraine happened, I kicked into action the same night, and I didn’t stop for months. But this time, being here, having the energy drained from me, I had retreated into my own shell and was finding it hard to leave it. The setbacks that we had experienced had made me a pastiche of my usual self. I had withdrawn from society because I felt society wanted that. But I didn’t want to pass this one with the regret of not taking any action.

So on Friday evening, I put out a message on the WhatsApp group for our coworking organisation to ask if anyone wanted to chip in with me and I would go out and fill up my car with practical items. Within a couple of hours I had nearly 300 euro in my account. In the morning, I emptied the car of any junk (and there was a LOT), and decided to head to a hypermarket in Sagunto, the next town north, relatively far from the disaster zone. The shop, however, was heaving. Parking spaces were at a premium, trolleys were virtually all gone, and every square metre of the shop was filled with shoppers and their acquisitions.

I had to firstly get a coin to stick in a trolley, and that meant I needed to go to the customer service helpdesk. It was swamped with people, but I took a number in case I got lucky. I went off somewhere else to find a coin. No luck. So when I got back to the helpdesk my number was called. But some other guy with a lower ticket number piped up. After hearing him inquiring about getting money back for some rather trivial gadget, I got a bit fed up with the self-absorbed people around me. So I said “all I need is a token or a coin to get a trolley.” She kindly gave me 50 cents and I said “thank you, that is all.” The old geezer looked fairly sheepishly at me and I gave him my best death stare. Sometimes my passive aggressive personality does come in handy.

The Ukraine tragedy had given me insight into what things are needed and what things people donate too much or too little of. Going round the shop, I pinpointed things that people always ignore in favour of the more obvious stuff: babies’ nappies, moisture tissues, large and medium rubbish bags, but also a few more obvious ones, such as disinfectant, cleaning products, cooking oil, broth, UHT milk and water. I chose to spread the number of products so as not to cause the shop to run out. This had happened everywhere during Covid and in parts after the Ukraine invasion.

Carrefour in Sagunto, halfway round

I went to join the queue to pay, and was confronted with a line of people that went around the entire exterior of the hypermarket, almost back to the checkout desk on the other side. It was immense. I thought it would be a little calmer in Sagunto, but this whole experience was proving that it was affecting the wider region as a whole. A couple of charlatans tried to push in front of the people behind me, claiming it was the end of the line, but a few pointers made them realise nobody was open to suffering fools gladly and they scuttled off elsewhere. Nearer the front, actually, but I’m sure they got the same message there too…

After a fairly quick wait, I reached the checkout. The lady behind me was patient enough to let me pack everything up properly. She was obviously aware I didn’t need a whole box of wet wipes, and enough cooking oil to drown in a bath with, just for myself. I packed up the car, returned the 50 cents to the kind woman at the helpdesk, and drove to Valencia.

There are various locations around the city taking in donations, and the first one I went to, the neighbourhood association of Benimaclet, was totally overwhelmed to the point that the volunteer outside told me to come back the day after. Outside, there were bottles of water stacked high. Inside, the place looked like a packing centre for a supermarket rather than a neighbourhood drop-in centre. They were very busy and doing their utmost to keep control of the situation.

I resolved to drive to the neighbourhood association in Algirós, close to our coworking centre. As soon as I opened the boot of the car, four volunteers came over and emptied it. They were really efficient and resourceful. They also appreciated the items I had got, and I felt justified in my purchases. One wanted to take the reflective vests that belonged in the car – I had to tell her they were ours and a legal requirement, which brought out a little smile. I drove off feeling contented that I had played my part and given other members of our coworking community the chance to play theirs.

My travels on Saturday 2 November

I called Bonny Bee, as it was half past one and lunch was pressing. We resolved to go to La Pobla de Farnals to the Italian restaurant there for pizza. The children could also go on the dodgems, the trampoline and the carrousel and give us a break. It was a good afternoon to decompress and take stock of the situation. As an aside, the music played at the rides was classical, not the usual pop-disco trash.

However, all was not well elsewhere.

Two weeks ago, we had gone to the neighbourhood of Aldaia near Alaquàs to look at a house to buy, and the week before that, we had been near Chiva looking at another one. Both neighbourhoods had been catastrophically affected by the floods. We might have ended up buying the latter, as it was a lovely house – a hundred trees in the grounds, including an olive grove, oranges, lemons and jacarandas. The other place was much nearer the city centre, but it was in an area that I didn’t like. I felt something was amiss there. Maybe I had a premonitory feeling about what was coming, I don’t know.

I have been wondering what state the places are in now though. If it were not for the geologically slow process of selling our house back in Germany, we may have ended up in western Valencia. We had even been to Torrent, Catarroja, La Torre and Calicanto to check on places to live: these four areas have all been severely cut off from the rest of the region. Roads are blocked, bridges gone, streets covered in debris that has accumulated in bottlenecks.

There have been other signs:

At about the same time as our visit to Aldaia, I spoke to a police officer about a piece of broken matchstick in our lock that had prevented us from opening our apartment door, and he had said it wasn’t a break-in but someone in our building who doesn’t like us. We have faced a few nasty run-ins with people who have made our time here less than ideal.

The blue dot top right is where we live, and the school and office are just below La Malvarrosa

Also, we had gone to buy a car, as the lease for our present one was due to expire on 6 November. But the agent responsible for the sale had made some rather basic errors in our request, and it had become difficult, no impossible, to buy one. Fortunately, the present car hire organisation had allowed us to carry on with the car we have.

All of these things had in a way been telling us, or even screaming at us, that we should reconsider our choice of place to settle. 

Late on Saturday, I went out to buy more provisions in a variety of shops. There was very little left, but I managed to scoop up what was necessary.

Nearly no fruit left in Mercadona, El Puig

Same story with the milk and dairy products

Salads and vegetables also all out of stock

Water - just some sparkling left, no still

On Sunday 3 November, the king and head of government came from Madrid to visit some of the ravaged areas. They were immediately set upon by angry mobs. There is a lot of resentment out there, and it’s mainly aimed at those at the top. People telling the heads of state and government they were four days too late, calling them murderers, and pelting them with some of the mud and silt that was still lying around in abundance.

We have to see how it’s reached this point. And it’s simple, really: the national government is led by Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE, a socialist party, and the regional government is led by Carlos Mazón of the Partido Popular, a right-of-centre party. One does not want the other to take the glory for any successes or decisive gestures of salvation. Instead, there was a huge political staring match with the loser being the one who blinked first. The toxic masculinity that has become a staple of Spanish politics really flowed over. Sánchez played the waiting game in the hope his rival would collapse, and Mazón confirmed the situation by believing that asking for outside help was a sign of political weakness from the Valencian government.

Courtesy of Memorias de Pez, YouTube. Full video HERE (in Spanish with subtitles)

We also have to look at who has responsibility for what. The Valencian government has control over law and order and keeping the peace as the Guardia Civil and the National Police come under its command. The Protección Civil is also under its control and coordinates the response, plans evacuations, and takes over places to use as refuges. The fire service is under the responsibility of both the Valencian government and local councils. Then there is the Policía Local, that controls the traffic and coordinates the evacuations. They are under the local council control only. Then there is the UME, or the Military Emergencies Unit, as well as the armed forces which are controlled solely by the government in Madrid. The Valencian government has to put out a request for their involvement. That obviously hadn’t happened because of the loss of face. A frightening realisation.

All of these points, all of these setbacks, all of these astonishing pieces of news, seemed to be conspiring to tell us something much more important: if this were to happen again we would be in the hands of politicians with very fragile egos.

A still from the Memorias de Pez video

I have known about the Land Of Nasty Surprises for most of my life. I warned Bonny Bee when she chose this place to come and live. It is not as shiny as it looks, as I had found out way back in the 1980s and 1990s. Things have hardly changed. The sun may shine most of the year; the food may be good even if it is full of pretty repetitive ingredients; the social life may go on round the clock and the bars and restaurants may be appealing. But under that superficial veneer there is not much substance.

I remember the response to Ukrainians fleeing the country into Poland in 2022. Before the night was over, there were preparations in place and a huge relief effort. Poland became the world's largest refugee camp without even erecting a single tent. I also remember the flooding in Germany and Luxembourg a few summers ago. The rescue operation was almost immediate and the governments had called for international help by the end of the first day. But here in Spain, political one-upmanship, point scoring and demonstrations of strength are more important than actually taking practical measures. 

It was this point that made us both resolved to leave Valencia for good, at some point in early 2025, all being well. We have a strong belief that there are never coincidences. And with that in mind, we will choose wisely.

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