Irish expats living in the Valencia region in Spain remain in shock after the deadliest floods to hit the country in decades, with one woman from Dublin having to abandon her home as it filled with water on Tuesday.
As search and rescue operations remain ongoing, amid a climbing death toll breaching 155, Dermot Hurley, president of the Valencia Irish Cultural Association, said those living in the region are in “shock”.
“We are thankful that our members haven’t lost anyone,” he added, though many remain uncontactable as phone and internet signals are intermittent or “almost non-existent” in some areas.
Mr Hurley said the response of local authorities is being “widely criticised”, saying despite meteorological services publishing a red alert at 11am on Tuesday, a stay-at-home warning from the regional authorities was not issued until 8pm.
Trish Sweeney who was forced to abandon her home with her wife on Tuesday said there was no preparation, adding: “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was fairly unprecedented.”
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The 66-year-old from Dublin has lived in the Valencia region for eight years with her wife Erika and currently lives in a remote area about a 40-minute drive from the city.
After her roof began to leak on Tuesday evening, “ferocious” water on the land surrounding the couple’s house began to build, while all of their rooms began to fill with water.
The couple promptly took their essential belongings and abandoned their home, before walking through water to reach their car in order to seek refuge on high ground.
“The sheer amount of water was just unbelievable,” she said, describing the experience as “frightening”.
“We didn’t know at that time that people had died,” she said, explaining that the couple had no signal or internet, “but we just instinctively went to high ground.”
The couple returned to their house on Wednesday to minimal damage aside from a damp interior and damaged antenna.
“We were lucky really, we only learned the next day how horrendous it was,” she said, noting one man known to her living in Paiporta had been swept “off his feet” with his wife after they left their car.
The couple managed to hold on to the door of a house and were brought inside by the owner, she said.
Meanwhile, those in the city of Valencia consider themselves lucky, saying neighbouring towns and villages were the worst affected.
“We just got an alert that people should not be using the roads in the province, that they should be left for emergency vehicles to deal with the catastrophe that’s happened,” said Noel Costello on Thursday afternoon.
Mr Costello, from Dublin, said there is a “huge relief effort” ongoing, particularly in neighbouring towns and villages where lives were lost.
“The people are all in shock, the local newspapers which cover the province have all been sold out, I tried to buy one myself,” he said.
The city’s metro, light rail system and some railway links remain out of service, he said, while essentials at supermarkets such as water or bread are largely out of stock, with some stores “rationing” water.
The 68-year-old who has been visiting Valencia for 26 years recalled receiving an alert on Tuesday evening while out for a meal, mistaking it for a fire alarm as all phones rang out simultaneously.
He described the subsequent rain as “biblical”, however, the diversion of the Turia river following the deadly floods in 1957, which originally ran directly through the city centre before the floods, “saved Valencia city”, he said.
President Michael D Higgins, meanwhile, has since expressed his “deepest condolences”, saying those who have been impacted by the “terrible floods,” and those working around the clock to help them, “will remain in our thoughts over the coming days.”
