"It's my story": a university project tries to save the memory of the families affected by the DANA storm.

Paiporta"They're my personal history. If I lose them, I'll lose half my story," Rafael laments. "Getting them back would be healing," Aurelia sighs. "It is. I've already been able to, and I'm so grateful," Amparo confirms, relieved. The conversation takes place in a house in the historic center of Paiporta, the epicenter of the devastating storm that claimed the lives of 230 people in the Valencian Community alone. The table around which the three friends sit is covered with papers and photographs. Some are images recovered from the clutches of the catastrophe; others bear witness to the indelible mark of the floods. Calmly, they review each snapshot one by one. Contemplating them awakens memories and anecdotes. Some bring a smile to their faces, others bring tears to their eyes.

To prevent Rafael from losing a family photographic archive dating back to the last decade of the 19th century and to enable Amparo and Aurelia to preserve memories of their college days or when their daughters were young, 18 entities, including universities and conservation and restoration schools, joined forces. The initiative was launched just two days after the tragedy by the University of Valencia (UV), which set up an email address and phone number so that affected families could get in touch. At the same time, given that mud still covered the area and many municipalities had not yet even had their electricity, drinking water, phone service, or internet connection restored, several professors and students from the affected towns formed a network of correspondents who went door-to-door to inform residents about the project. The task was so extensive that the UV was soon overwhelmed and opened the program to the participation of museums, city councils, institutions, and other universities. Thus, two lines of work emerged: the University of Valencia, with laboratories located in the towns hit by the torrential rains, and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), on its campus. "We saw that people were throwing away photographs because they thought they couldn't be recovered. That really affected us because it represented a great loss," recalls Aline Dieterlen, a student in the UPV's Master's program in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, who, two days after the torrential rains, went to the affected area of ​​Godella to deliver the photographs. From that experience arose numerous WhatsApp conversations between Dieterlen and classmates, all ending with the same conclusion: "something had to be done." Days later, the young woman spoke with professors Esther Nebot and Pilar Soriano, two of the three coordinators of the UPV's involvement in the project, and by November 4th, she was already participating as a volunteer, a connection that has lasted for more than a year, eventually becoming one of the 110 people awarded scholarships by her university.

As the Dieterlen example demonstrates, solidarity has been key to an initiative that has amassed impressive figures with the participation of 450 researchers, teachers, and restorers, 170 of them volunteers, and the support of academic institutions throughout Spain and Europe, such as the Fine Arts and Design Association of Bratislava. Regarding investment, the project is funded by the Ministry of Culture and the Valencia Provincial Council – which has contributed €500,000 – as well as funds from the universities themselves. This is the case of the University of Valencia (UV), which has allocated more than €300,000 and is requesting further contributions to make possible what its rector, Mavi Mestre, has described as "the largest heritage rescue operation" in the Valencian Community.

Thanks to all this work, more than one million photographs have already been restored, and the expectation is to exceed 2.5 million images from more than 1,500 families. This figure is sure to grow, given that the laboratories continue to receive photographs. The first step involved the physical conservation of the digitized albums. Then, each image was cleaned, and a high-resolution digital copy was created and stored on a USB drive. This is very delicate work because the fragility of the paper prevents immersion. Therefore, traces of mud and other elements must be removed with a brush using great care. The next step is the digital restoration of the photographs using artificial intelligence. This technology allows for the completion of damaged parts of the photographs. But the work doesn't end there, because the project also includes the recovery of very old bibliographic materials, works of art, letters, and postcards, some from periods as far back as the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. In fact, according to Esther Nebot, the majority of the altered photographs belong to the period beginning in the 1940s and ending at the close of the last century, when digital cameras first became widespread and later mobile phones.

"Destroyed Images"

One of the beneficiaries of the initiative is Amparo Romero, who opens her home to us while showing the restored photographs to her friends Aurelia Fernández and Rafael Montaner. The images are loose, as this hospitality teacher and mother of four hasn't yet had time to put them in a new album. Most are memories of First Communions and family celebrations. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of her daughter Cecilia, one of the people in the photos. The young woman explains that recovering them has brought her great joy, given that she didn't have a digital copy. She also expresses her gratitude for the restorers' excellent work and points out that the photographs had been "full of mud and very faded." "They were ruined," she summarizes.

Aurelia and Rafael will still have to wait to get their images back. They took them to the laboratory set up by the University of Valencia at the Regional Museum of l'Horta Sud in the neighboring city of Torrent, but they haven't received them back yet. These are very old snapshots, since the family archive was started by Rafael's great-grandfather. "They are the only pictures we have of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother. Without them, perhaps in a few years we won't even remember what they looked like," he emphasizes. This former woodcarver and former security guard dedicated his first months of retirement—he is now 72 years old—to organizing this precious inheritance. A treasure that was almost lost when, on October 29, 2024, the water in his house reached 160 centimeters high. The albums were on the top shelves of a bookcase and were severely damaged. It's a location they've learned should never be repeated. "Now we know that valuable things should be on the upper floors of houses. It won't happen to us again," Amparo points out. In her home, the water reached 238 centimeters.

The conversation becomes rushed at times, and numerous memories of that fateful day surface, constantly diverting the narrative from the photographs, as if they were an anchor keeping our interviewees tethered to those agonizing hours. This is not surprising considering that an elderly woman who lived alone drowned on Amparo Street, and that she and her husband, Ignacio, spent the night with neighbors in a building on the outskirts of town, where they had gone to celebrate a birthday, while two of their daughters remained alone in the family home. In Aurelia and Rafael's case, they took refuge on a small platform in their house, accessible only by an external staircase leading from a small patio.

The interview reveals a surprise when we learn that Aurelia and Rafael haven't had all their photographs restored. There are a few damaged albums still at home. In them, they keep snapshots of their youth and the years when their children, Rafael and Almudena, were little. They say that the flood of photographs the labs received forced them to set a maximum number per family. "The photos are all glued together, and I don't dare take them out for fear of tearing them," she laments. Aurèlia gets emotional listing the memories the albums hold and has to stop to keep her feelings from overflowing. Amparo and her husband try to comfort her and convince her to try again. "Recovering them would be healing," she admits.

"We don't take a picture when we're sad"

Aurelia's tears don't surprise Esther Nebot. The curator emphasizes the value of photographic heritage as a repository of individual and family memory, as well as collective memory. Even more so when the loss affects an entire region "that loses its history." The UPV professor adds that images have a great evocative power and are capable of awakening dormant memories. "Thanks to them, you can recover a smell or a feeling," she summarizes. Dieterlen agrees, pointing out another characteristic: snapshots usually reflect happy moments. "We don't take a picture when we're sad," she emphasizes.

Esther and Aline are proud to have participated in the project. The professor describes it as "an emotional rollercoaster." "We shared many tears, but also many joys. People broke down, and we broke down with them," Nebot recalls. "One day, a young volunteer recognized her grandfather in a 1912 yearbook photo that was in the restaurant; it was very moving," the student remembers. "As conservators, we say that our profession is to be guardians of time, and with this initiative, the motto has taken on its full meaning," Dieterlen concludes.

We left Amparo, Rafael, and Aurelia looking through photographs of Cecilia's First Communion and those documenting the aftermath of a devastating storm, the effects of which are still very visible in the town. The impact is especially evident in the town's historic center, where traces of the catastrophe are countless. Some offer hope, like the houses being rebuilt. Others, however, are deeply disheartening, such as the dozens of abandoned lots where homes once stood. They all share one common element, though: the now-iconic muddy handprints of the thousands of volunteers who came to the aid of those who had lost everything. It is a spirit of solidarity that projects like Salvem les Fotos (Save the Photos) strive to keep alive.