"It was terrifying": the night that the rain turned the Barcelona neighborhood of Font del Gos into a river

Barcelona"We had never seen anything like it." Residents of the Font del Gos neighborhood in Barcelona were still observing with disbelief this Tuesday morning the devastation that the weekend's downpour caused in the area. From the mountain of mud under which the asphalt of Carrer Torrent de Cal Notari has disappeared, they relived what they defined as one of the most dramatic nights experienced in the area. On the night from Saturday to Sunday, firefighters had to arrive by boat to their homes to rescue six families in danger due to the rising of the torrent. Some were already waiting perched on the roof of their houses, the only place the water did not yet cover.

"It was terrifying," recalls José Álvarez. That early morning, the house that had been his grandmother's and in which he has lived for four years was on the verge of becoming a trap for him and his fourteen-year-old daughter. He relates that the water gained height very quickly in his yard. "I saw that we had to get out because we were in danger," he explains. It was not easy for him. At the windows he has bars and the water pressure did not let him open the main door. He ended up breaking it to be able to escape. With the water above his waist and dodging everything the flood was dragging, he and his daughter were able to jump the wall to go to the neighbors' house, Sílvia Rodríguez and Jordi Cortijo.

From the second-floor balcony, they watched with anguish as the water turned their street into a stream and how, a few meters further down, Enrique Jiménez, his two children, and their respective families climbed onto the roof of their home, which was completely flooded. From there, they saw the firefighters arrive, well into the early hours of the morning, who had to reach the houses by boat to rescue the neighbors. It was the end of the night, but not the nightmare. On Monday morning, just as they were beginning to take stock of the damage suffered, the firefighters evacuated them again due to the risk that the unexpected storm that surprised Barcelona would flood the street once more.

Hence, this Tuesday, while walking through devastated terrain, they have one eye on the sky. "We hope it doesn't rain that hard again," asks Jiménez. His house is the one that took the worst hit. "The water took everything," he explains while pointing with his hand to the height—about two meters—that the flood reached, which destroyed part of the ceiling and practically all of the furniture. One of his refrigerators is now a handful of meters further down the mountain. There are areas of the house where so much damage has accumulated that he has not even been able to enter yet. He has lived here for forty years, in a house he built himself over the years. "Now I have to start from scratch," he laments.

One house further up, Álvarez also keeps an eye on the weather forecast. More than a meter of mud has accumulated in the yard, and the forecast that the rains might continue for a few more days prevents him from starting to take out of the house everything that needs to dry. Inside, the height the water reached is perfectly visible in the mark it has left on the walls, the beds, and even the clothes inside the closets. In his case, the work van is also completely full of mud inside. His private car had to be towed away by a crane on Monday after the water also dragged it a few meters.

The City Council points out that the Horta-Guinardó district is carrying out "constant monitoring" of the situation in Font del Gos. Councilwoman Sara Belbeida has visited the area three times since Sunday and is in direct contact with the affected residents. To the uncertainty that the area has been living with for many years –affected by various pending urban planning projects– is now added the tension that these types of more aggressive storms could end up condemning some of the residents of this neighborhood that formally does not exist and administratively is part of the Horta-Guinardó neighborhood.

Insufficient channeling

This Tuesday morning, City Council machines were working against the clock, taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't raining, to try to remove the mud and dirt that had buried the path. Meanwhile, the neighbors were trying to find an explanation for downpours they had never seen in forty years. The majority pointed to the new drainage systems installed by the council a few years ago, which they consider insufficient, but above all, the construction of the TMB bus depot. "Before, the water would have flowed down the ravine; now it hits the depot and accumulates here at our homes," denounced Jiménez.

The situation at Font del Gos is the tip of the iceberg of a storm that has harshly punished the mountain neighborhoods of Barcelona. Also in Torre Baró, where neighbors have organized to remove mud from the streets. Or in Sant Genís dels Agudells, where this Tuesday there were still some streets cut off by the fifty or so landslides that have been recorded in recent days. With flooding in the city minimized by the network of rainwater tanks, the City Council's challenge now is how to protect the areas closest to the mountain.