Flash flooding strikes Valencia again: late warnings and the specter of 2024

Valencia floods again and the warning arrives too late

A car navigates a street in the capital of Valencia; water overflows the sidewalk, containers float in the middle of the road, and eyewitness accounts describe small waves forming. The storm unleashes violence for a long half hour before subsiding. September, again. Two years after the DANA devastated Paiporta, the province looks to the sky with the same question: what has been done since then.

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Why did the alert sound when the water was already falling?

The mobile alerts arrived for some with not a single drop on the street, and for others after it had been pouring rain for an hour. In Paterna, classes were suspended and official centers closed throughout the afternoon due to an episode that, in several spots, amounted to typical downpours. The water found passage through tunnels and specific streets, swept away some cars, and flooded basements. That's it.

Some argue that the public sector has gone from making mistakes due to omission to doing so through excess: first, it failed during the year of the catastrophe; now, there is an overreaction to every orange alert. The counterargument weighs heavily: when faced with a storm coming from the interior and impossible volumes of water to predict on paper, being cautious is not a fault. The difference between a useful warning and a useless one remains unresolved, flood after flood.

The actual state of the reservoirs and dams

The warning that reservoirs will be peine, bringing the flood, circulates every time it rains. The available data does not support this: the local reservoirs are below 50%, and there was no forecast of more rain for the rest of the week. There was also no indication that any of the three reservoirs in the basin were being peine.

The 2024 episode serves to explain why the reflection persists. The Forata dam filled in two hours, going from 13% to 110%, but its bottom drainage was clogged with mud, making it unviable to open. The Buseo dam has no gates. And in the ravine area, which bore the brunt of the flooding, there are simply no reservoirs to open.

Can life continue in the l'Horta ravines?

The underlying issue is not meteorological; it is urban planning and fiscal. This entire area functions as a gigantic lagoon that, with torrential rain, turns into a sea. Its habitability depends on enormous hydraulic infrastructure and extremely expensive maintenance, which is perpetually postponed. The uncomfortable idea is suggested: offering very strong tax incentives for people to abandon those areas.

Meanwhile, the rest of Spain is moving toward the opposite problem: a growing semi-desert. And construction in floodable zones continues, year after year, without anyone paying the price for rebuilding basements, cars, and lives every time the ravine fills.

The political battle renewed with every drop

Each flood reopens the same battle: the regional government and the central government exchange accusations about who warned, who was slow, and who failed to mobilize resources. In 2024, the central administration was criticized for not deploying the military or accepting international aid—an accusation that is persistently raised but never substantiated as fact. Conversely, criticism of the lack of investment in hydraulic works is echoed by voices from opposing sides.

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Twenty-five years after graduation, those who experienced those youth floods find that the metro is still flooding in the same way, with the added detail of a mobile alert arriving when the street is already a river. The fact is jarring: it has taken only half an hour to reopen the wound. That's all it takes.