"It has been a chaos, in ten minutes everything has flooded": Granollers takes the worst part of the storm

Granollers has taken the worst of the storm this Monday. The capital of the Vallès Oriental region has accumulated 343 liters since Saturday night, and just between midnight and ten o'clock this Monday morning, the rain left more than 100 liters there. All of this has caused a critical scenario, with the Congost river at its limit, many streets flooded, and even two sinkholes on the road near the courthouse that forced the temporary evacuation of two buildings. "It was chaos; in 10 minutes everything was flooded. Two more minutes and my car would have been stuck at the roundabout," says Glòria Ruiz, owner of the Destaca dry cleaners, which is right at the roundabout that gives access to the South beltway of Granollers and which was flooded by the torrential rains.

The unpredictability of the storm and the fact that the most intense downpour occurred during rush hour have multiplied the incidents. The Generalitat Fire Department had to rescue several people who had been trapped inside vehicles stranded by the rain in the Vallès Oriental. The emergency services body registered 44 alerts in this region until shortly before 10 a.m., of which 13 were for rescues and 21 for flooding. The rest of the alerts were for fallen trees and structural damage. Given this situation, the Government opted to order the confinement of the population from 9:30 a.m. until the early afternoon.

This Monday, Ruiz left home at 5 a.m. to arrive early at the shop, which had already been full of water on Sunday. "It was raining inside for us; in 10 minutes everything was flooded," he says, due to water leaks from the terraces of the apartments above. Complications on the roads due to the storm meant it took him almost two hours to reach Granollers from Canet de Mar, where he lives, just in time before the area was covered in water again. At the dry cleaners, they managed by "making barricades with duvets and blankets" to prevent the water from damaging all the material they have there, but outside, Glòria saw two people get out of their cars completely soaked, as the vehicles were sinking at the roundabout.

Right there, the owner of the Merly's bar explains that his premises did not suffer any damage, but the area was left "a bit destroyed." Even so, he says that now they are "better than Sunday," because during the morning the water has been receding and one can now walk on the sidewalk. On Sunday at 5:30 in the morning, the area was full of water and mud, and in addition, the slope on which the Rodalies tracks run gave way. His premises are right in front, and he himself saw a man calling for help to get out of his car, which had been trapped at that roundabout at dawn. "The firefighters did not take long and rescued him," he explains. For a whole day, no cars have circulated, and it is noticeable that the high schools and schools have closed. Some curious people are coming from the center to see how the area has been left.

Water has also forced the total suspension of traffic in Granollers due to the flooding of the tracks. As a consequence of this situation, the passengers of a train that had stopped on the R2 North line were able to be evacuated without incident at the Granollers Centre station. This Monday morning it was also very difficult to move around within the municipality. Elisabet Ventura, a resident of the city, was walking to work at seven-thirty, when it seemed like the rain was easing, but she had to turn back. "On the sidewalk, the water covered my foot, and when I stepped off the sidewalk it reached my knee. The water made me wobble and I had to go up from Girona street towards the hospital, and through there the water was coming down like a flood," she explains. Finally, she returned home and this Monday morning the rehabilitation center where she works did not open, which is a premises below the level of the sidewalk and it was already full of water on Sunday.

Closed schools

The heavy rains have caused classes to be cancelled in the Vallès Oriental. The director of the Antoni Cumella Institute in Granollers, Sira Melo, explains that they have spent some difficult hours. First thing in the morning, they had no instructions from the territorial Education services regarding whether to close or not. Meanwhile, they did not stop receiving questions from teachers, students, and families about whether there was class or not. "On the initiative of the management teams, without having any coverage or instructions from the authorities, we told them to use common sense, that if they saw they could not travel, they should not do so. It was impossible to even come on foot," she explains.

Finally, they learned that the decision was in the hands of the town councils and that they could close. When they received the notice with an ES-Alert to shelter in place due to the risk of the river overflowing, about ten students had already arrived at the school, as well as some teachers. This public high school is a few meters from the Congost river, in an area where there are also other schools and high schools. The access to the parking lot for teachers has been flooded and, inside, water has entered the canteen, as already happened on Sunday, in some baccalaureate classrooms and in a space that provides access to the gymnasium. In some spots, there were four fingers of water. "There was a waterfall, we also have leaks in the ceiling," they state. There have also been floods in other centers such as the Marta Estrada Institute.

In a press conference, the mayor of Granollers, Alba Barnusell, detailed that fortunately there were no personal injuries to lament and explained that the "most critical" points were the Ronda Sud, the Avinguda de l'Estació del Nord, and the Ramon Llull parking lot. The mayor also spoke about the situation at the Granollers Hospital, where this Saturday's rains caused problems especially on floors -1 and -2 and forced the relocation of patients.

Barnusell said that the impact was significant in "internal work" spaces and not in "patient or user" areas. In fact, despite the impacts, the Granollers Hospital has been able to keep all services open in other locations. For example, patients who are under observation are being attended to in the multipurpose room. Specifically, there were incidents in the basement and in the emergency area, and the pharmacy area was especially affected.

In the afternoon, Barnusell called for calm, but also for caution: "The city is quieter, calmer. The goal is to restore normality." In turn, the Firefighters informed that they are no longer in a phase of rescuing people, but rather of recovering the space and returning to normality. In this sense, there are no longer any impacts on the roads or access to the municipality, and it is expected that this Tuesday the day can open normally. In fact, the mayor said that all educational centers except the adult one are prepared to open.