Mayors of flooded municipalities in Tarragona demand solutions to evacuate water to the sea
Roda de Berà and El Vendrell ask the Generalitat and the Spanish government for structural actions on the train line, the N-340 and the streams
BarcelonaTorrential rains in the Tarragonès and Baix Penedès regions have highlighted the vulnerability of the coast to extreme rainfall events and have reopened the debate on the territory's capacity to manage their consequences, mainly evacuating water. The mayors of Roda de Berà and El Vendrell, two of the municipalities most affected by the downpours, have called for structural actions this Sunday and specifically point to the railway line and the N-340 as infrastructures that can hinder its outflow to the sea at various points, causing serious floods like those experienced this weekend. The Government has made itself available to the municipalities to repair the damaged infrastructures, although it rules out declaring the territories as a "catastrophic zone".
The mayor of El Vendrell, Kenneth Martínez, argued this Sunday that "brave decisions" must be made in the face of a problem he considers "structural". As he explained to the ACN, both the railway line and the N-340 act as barriers to water flow at various points along the coast. The train track, he argued, concentrates the water outflow at certain crossings, which can cause it to accumulate and flow "like a siphon". Therefore, Martínez has called for the issue to be addressed as "a matter for the country" and for the construction of more passages under the infrastructures, as well as new reservoirs and channels, to be studied. The objective is to increase the territory's capacity to absorb and evacuate water during exceptional rainfall episodes.
The diagnosis is shared by the mayor of Roda de Berà, Pere Virgili, who has called on Adif to act "forcefully" and to allocate "whatever money is necessary" to make the railway infrastructure more permeable. In the coastal neighborhoods of various municipalities in the area, the problem is often not only the water coming down from higher ground, but the difficulty for it to continue its course to the sea. "The water that cannot get out," he summarized. Virgili specified that this was one of the issues that the municipalities raised with the Minister of Justice, Ramon Espadaler, after the episode, and recalled that his government had already requested the extension of one of the water passages during the works on the Berà tunnel. Now, the council wants to raise the issue again with the Government's sub-delegation so that it can forward it to Adif and the Spanish government.
Flooded campsites and hotels
The need to act on infrastructure is not the only element that the mayors want to review. In El Vendrell, Martínez has also called for rethinking the management of streams, especially when they cross more than one municipality. According to the mayor, currently "there is no good protocol" nor a sufficiently homogeneous criterion to act in the face of these watercourses. For this reason, he advocates for "protocolizing" and "professionalizing" the response, with shared criteria among municipalities that allow for anticipating actions when heavy rainfall episodes are foreseen. However, the water was evacuated during the early morning and by early Sunday, a large part of the seafront had already returned to normal. The main damage was concentrated on vehicles, some shops and garages, and beach furniture.
In parallel, in Roda de Berà, the city council continues to assess the damage to public roads and is working especially on the beaches and the coastal area. Virgili estimates around twenty vehicles affected and points out that the beaches will hardly be able to recover their state before the flood before the end of the summer. One of the most affected areas was a campsite located in a flood-prone zone. Virgili admitted that it will be necessary to study whether "some configuration" of the space needs to be reconsidered. The mayor recalled that in recent years, actions have already been carried out jointly with the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) to reduce the impact of the water's flow. Now, however, the City Council will have to assess whether the measures applied so far are sufficient after an episode like this past weekend.
In Coma-ruga, the effects of the flood were still visible this Sunday. In front of the Maramar hotel, cleaning staff were removing water and mud marks that had been left on the ground-floor windows while customers collected their belongings and dealt with insurers and tow services for the removal of affected vehicles. Numerous cars have been submerged in water and cannot start. Some tourists have opted to advance their return home. Others have decided to stick to their planned itineraries. Elena Pérez, also from Zaragoza, has decided to spend the last day of her vacation in Coma-ruga even though her vehicle has been rendered unusable by the water. "We are fine, it is important to value that," she explained, while the family deals with the insurer for the car's removal.
Why wasn't ES-Alert activated?
The absence of ES-Alert during the episode has also opened a debate on the criteria for activating the massive alert system on mobile phones. The Minister of Justice, Ramon Espadaler, defended that ES-Alert was not activated because the Meteocat alert level was 4 out of 6 and "it was not justified", and the director of Meteocat, Sarai Sarroca, endorsed the actions of Civil Protection and recalled that prediction and surveillance notices were issued, the latter raised from orange to red. Neither Martínez nor Virgili have questioned the decision, but both have agreed that the reasons must be explained to the public.
