Day 6 in the heart of Spain’s flood-devastated area: Still dazed and angry, locals praise young volunteers The flash floods in the Valencia region have taken many lives, many homes and several political careers, but it has also destroyed a wideheld view of young people as a selfish and jaded generation In the Spanish town of Alfafar, in the flood-hit region of Valencia , volunteers and residents — some with shovels and others with wooden boards — push the watery mud to the drainpipes on Ciudad de Calatayud Street. On this avenue lined with houses whose innards lie piled up outside their front doors, looking like butchered animals, a woman points to a mountain of belongings covered in fresh mud. There are dozens of such piles out on the street.
Everything is rotting away and one can barely make out some broken furniture, a few household appliances. In other circumstances, it would make sense to think that this was an old pile of junk that had not been collected for decades. But just a week ago this was somebody’s life.
The owner of the pile, Cati Rodríguez, points at what’s left of her home: “That over there is my living room. A little further on is my kitchen,” she says. She looks at the house, noting how incredibly high the water level reached.
“Shall I sell it to you?” On Tuesday, Cati went down to the garage to take her car to a higher place. Many testimonies concur: everyone believed that if there was any flooding at all later in the day, it might be s.