Parlon defends the management of the floods that have left one dead: "The alert did not arrive late"

BarcelonaThe Minister of Interior, Núria Parlon, defended this Thursday that the mobile alerts for last night's intense rains were sent in response to predictions of "flash" floods: "They do not arrive late, but rather when the population must protect itself." The minister said this in a joint appearance with the deputy director of Civil Protection of the Generalitat, Sergi Delgado, where they reported on the management of the downpours from last night, which caused the death of a driver in Olivella, in the Garraf region, in addition to road and train closures, flight cancellations, and various floods.

According to Parlon, the sending of the Es-Alert messages—yesterday evening and at night in the metropolitan area, when it was already raining heavily—was correct and was "fully justified," in accordance with the "meteorological prediction corrected for the risk of flash flooding." "We do not send the Es-Alert to warn that it will rain a lot," emphasized the minister, who recalled that yesterday's precipitation did not have a "stable behavior." In this sense, the minister considered that "alerts are not sent lightly," but only once the danger to the population has been assessed: "We cannot stop life in general, because in the end, no one would listen to us," she defended.

The explanations come after the Fire Department found the lifeless body of the driver who was dragged away with his car by a stream in Olivella at midnight yesterday. Rescue teams first located the car, and finally the fatality, about 500 meters from the vehicle.

The rain, which fell heavily on the Garraf and Barcelonès coast, caused flooding and serious mobility problems. The Ronda de Dalt was cut off in both directions and there were also cars trapped in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, heading towards Mataró. By 11:30 p.m., the firefighters had already accumulated almost 200 alerts due to the storm.

The mayor of the Catalan capital, Jaume Collboni, closed ranks this Thursday with Parlon and rejected that it was necessary to send the Es-Alert sooner. In this sense, he stressed that both the City Council and Civil Protection had already issued warnings throughout the day to the population in view of the prospect of heavy rain. Regarding the flooding in the metro or the Ronda de Dalt, Collboni admitted that if these rain episodes become more frequent "it should not be ruled out" that some infrastructure may need to be reviewed to improve its resistance capacity to downpours.

Effects on mobility

This morning the impact of the torrential rains was still evident. A traffic disruption has been affecting the R2, R2Nord, and R11 lines since this morning, between Barcelona (Sant Andreu) and Granollers Centre. The reason? The rain has caused two new holes to appear in the ground of the tracks, very close to the point where last July a large sinkhole swallowed a crane from the Rodalies construction works, near Vallbona.

Thus, on these lines, traffic remains, for the moment, completely interrupted. At two in the afternoon, Adif confirmed that it had already opened one of the two tracks. Half an hour later, at two-thirty, they added that the second one was also being opened. According to Renfe, however, the trains are not yet running. Before carrying passengers again, test runs (without passengers) and the usual traffic and safety checks for these cases will be carried out.

Throughout the morning, Adif workers have been working to refill the holes. According to spokespeople for the infrastructure manager, heavy rains have washed away the ballast (the stones located under the tracks) and other materials. For its part, Renfe has tried to guarantee mobility by planning an alternative transport service with road buses.

Apart from this new incident, the network is carrying other problems such as delays and speed limitations derived from the rains. At this time, "punctual" low speeds are still being maintained in places like the R4 line, where in addition there has also been a new copper theft, between Castellbisbal and Molins de Rei. All of this has caused delays to remain at an average of about 30 minutes throughout the morning.

The operator Renfe also explained that the storm flooded the pits of the Sant Andreu Comtal workshop at dawn, which is used as a maintenance base for regional trains. Renfe has explained that technicians have been working since early in the morning to drain the accumulated water, check for possible damage and return to normal "and thus avoid affecting the mid-distance service in the coming days".

At El Prat airport there were also about twenty cancellations and numerous delays. And, finally, on the Barcelona metro, the main platform of Fabra i Puig remains closed and some lines such as the L4 and the L11 are also experiencing problems.

Severe flooding at Vall d'Hebron Hospital

Vall d'Hebron Hospital is also suffering the consequences of yesterday's storm. The downpour caused flooding in the basements of three buildings of this reference medical center, which are still being cleaned up this morning. The rain even caused part of a false ceiling to collapse in the pediatric nephrology ward, without the damage affecting any patients. As a precaution, however, some of the inpatients were moved to other areas.