Two floods and more than 200 liters in three days: Torredembarra looks at the sky and suffers on the ground

TorredembarraYesterday, early in the morning, in Torredembarra, the sound of working chainsaws could be heard. It was the day after the storm. The new episode of violent weather had caused about fifty trees to fall in different parts of the municipality, and they needed to be removed. Some were blocking the way, others had fallen on parked vehicles or could pose a danger to pedestrians. A large cypress tree fell on two cars on Monday afternoon. One was driving with four people inside, one of whom was hit on the head and had to be taken to the Municipal Primary Care Center (CAP) for treatment. Precisely, another tree had fallen and affected the pediatrics module of this facility, and by night it had already been intervened to remove it. Some shops were closed with staff trying to remove the water that had entered the premises as best they could.

Torredembarra is experiencing a very wet end to August. With historical records. In just three days, more than 200 liters per square meter have fallen in some areas of the town, and the effects are noticeable. It happened in two episodes. The first was last Saturday morning, and the Meteocat station in the municipality recorded 137 liters. It had been 26 years since so much rain was collected in a single day. In the second episode, on Monday afternoon, only about fifty liters fell. But they fell in two bursts in less than an hour and were accompanied by strong gusts of wind and also hail. The most evident effects were falling trees, some municipal parking lots turned into swimming pools where for hours it was an odyssey to retrieve cars, streets and avenues turned into torrents that dragged urban furniture, and flooding in ground floors and underpasses.

The fact that underground connections between the two sides of the train tracks flood is not an exceptional occurrence. The extensive urbanization of areas that were previously farmland and the lack of storm drains in many streets cause water to accumulate, which does not reach the collectors to be discharged into the sea. The City Council is including storm drains in the streets that have been remodeled in the last decade, but there are still too many that do not have them, causing underpasses like the one in Viló to fill up completely. The solution would involve the construction of a retention basin that costs several million euros, a very significant investment for a municipality with fewer than 20,000 registered inhabitants. The help of other administrations will be needed to face it.

Meanwhile, there is a certain weariness and even resignation among the residents living in flood-prone areas. And even more so when neither Saturday nor Monday did any ES-Alert message arrive. On the other hand, during the past year, it has been issued in situations that were ultimately much less serious. Two days ago, Tarragonès was not among the counties with the highest risk of heavy rain, but social networks were filled with images of the effects of the storm in Torredembarra. Every time it starts to rain heavily, residents look at the sky and prepare for what might happen. And even more so after the heat accumulated for weeks, which has overheated the sea.

Torredembarra is not an exception. The neighboring town of Altafulla also suffers similar floods in its maritime neighborhood when it rains heavily and is awaiting the construction of a large regulation basin to reduce them. Roda de Berà and El Vendrell were greatly affected by the weekend's episode, and Tarragona and other towns on the Tarragonès coast suffered a lot of damage due to Monday's storm.

The mayors are asking for changes, solutions. The debate is open, and we have controversy for days. Meanwhile, the residents of Torredembarra will continue to watch the sky in the coming days so that the third does not arrive. And it is that the strong days of the main festival of Santa Rosalía are approaching, a patron saint more accustomed to warding off the plague than storms.