"We had never seen anything like this": the coastline tries to recover from the ravages of the downpours

Platja d'Aro / Hospitalet de LlobregatThe worst part of this Sunday's severe storm was felt in Maresme, Vallès Oriental, and the southern Costa Brava. The heavy storms that lashed Barcelona and the metropolitan area on Saturday have moved upwards, following the Girona coastline from south to north, with records exceeding 150 liters in many parts of the Empordà, leaving two people dead and one young man missing in Pineda de Mar. Several towns spent the morning with flooded streets, road closures, and damage caused by overflowing rivers and streams that cross urbanized areas before flowing into the sea.

In Blanes, the first floor of the hospital was left with a foot of water, mud, and debris in the emergency area, although this did not cause serious disruptions to the center's activity. In Palafolls, the Enric Miralles Library accumulated a meter and a half of water, so all the books and materials in the room were rendered completely unusable. Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Platja d'Aro, s'Agaró, and Calonge also experienced difficult hours, but the situation has now normalized.

In the afternoon, municipal teams and Generalitat services are working at full speed. They are opening sewers to clear blockages and excavators are cleaning riverbeds and removing reeds stuck to bridges. It is no longer raining and river levels, fortunately, have dropped. On the streets, however, neighbors are coming out after a day of being locked at home to walk around and gawk at the most affected areas with their phones, while rain with lightning and thunder can be seen on the horizon, out at sea. "We weren't afraid, because we have already experienced similar situations, but it is true that they are more frequent now. In the last few hours we received several ES-Alerts and they have been very useful," explains Jaume, a resident of Platja d'Aro. Less accustomed to floods, in Vallès Oriental they experienced it as a totally exceptional event: "We had never seen anything like this," explained Teresa, a resident of Canovelles, to the ACN, where the Congost river experienced a strong surge and water entered the streets with force, walls collapsed, and there was significant damage to homes.

"It was like a tide"

Scenes of neighbors with rubber boots and brooms trying to clean patios, houses, and streets of mud have been repeated throughout the day in various towns along the Catalan coast and inland. Such as in Montornès del Vallès, one of the most affected municipalities and precisely the location where they found the lifeless body of a resident inside a parking garage. From early in the morning, the Generalitat Fire Department has been pumping out this parking garage, full of water and mud. A long wait, with the worst forecasts on the table, since the family had already warned that he was missing and that he was most likely in the parking garage. "The water came like a tide, like a tsunami, and started to lift containers and carry them away, and even a car," recounts Dani, a neighbor who lives on the same street where the fatality was found. This neighborhood is located at a complicated point, right at the confluence of the Vallromanes stream and the Mogent river, which caused a meter of water to accumulate on the street and enter the houses.

After the storm, all eyes turned to the flow of the rivers. The Ridaura, in Baix Empordà, between 9:30 and 11:30 AM, went from 30 to 300 cubic meters per second, overflowed along the final stretch of the river mouth, and caused a large sand meander. It also flooded some ground floors of the housing developments on both banks, and the asphalt of the bridge that crosses it cracked due to the pressure of the water. However, the Generalitat's technicians have ruled out structural damage and it has already been reopened. "The Ridaura has returned to normal and the streets are operational again. We had seen the river this full other times; the last time it overflowed was in 2005. At that time, we widened the riverbed and surely that is why today we have not had to lament further consequences," comments the town's mayor, Maurici Jiménez, in statements to ARA.

Further inland, following the course of the Ridaura, in Santa Cristina d'Aro, the floods have affected the surroundings of the Golf Costa Brava. The slopes of the sports facilities have channeled the water towards the houses and the ground floors have been flooded. Despite being protected with planks, it was necessary to work all afternoon with buckets and brooms. In the same municipality, the pavilion has been rendered unusable due to leaks and the road connecting to Sant Feliu de Guíxols has been cut off, where the storm has also flooded the narrow streets of the old town. The same has happened on the other side of Platja d'Aro, where the streams coming from the Gavarres massif have dragged black water with ash remains from the summer fire, and even some wild boar surprised by the downpour that was trying to escape from the current that was carrying it to the beach.

Flooded ground floors and premises

In the Barcelona metropolitan area, on the other hand, the morning has been calmer, after a night of very intense rain. In L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, the water has flooded several commercial premises and apartments located on the ground floor. Toni Soto has spent the whole morning removing water from his storage room located in the Bellvitge neighborhood. Dozens of neighbors are doing the same, equipped with mops, and some lament damage to their belongings due to the water, which reaches almost a hand's breadth. "We spent an extremely intense night worrying about what we would find this morning," explained to the ACN the owner of a hair salon on Rodés street in the same municipality, who laments that the area floods repeatedly when there are intense rains.