The mayor of L'Alcúdia (Valencia), Andreu Salom, has stated before the judge who is investigating the case concerning the management of the devastating dana of October 29, 2024, which left 233 dead in the province of Valencia, that around 6:00 p.m. that day the municipality was "already" completely flooded: "I had the feeling that they had left us abandoned. The feeling was one of helplessness. At that moment I had no information about what was happening in L'Horta Sud," he said.
Salom testified as a witness in the proceedings that are examining the actions of the authorities during the episode of extreme rainfall, in which the former Consellera of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, and her former regional secretary, Emilio Argüeso, appear as investigated.
The mayor detailed that on the 28th, in view of the adverse weather forecasts, the city council chose to cancel in advance the classes for the following day, as well as activity at the Day Center, the sports facilities and the municipal parks and gardens.
According to his account, in the early hours of the 28th to the 29th it rained "heavily" in L'Alcúdia —where three fatalities were recorded— and the municipal sports center was flooded. Already in the morning, he continued, personnel from the Provincial Firefighters Consortium rescued neighbors trapped on the other side of the ravine who could not access the urban center. "They did it with aerial means. They also helped a French truck driver cross," he said.
He assured that the perception at the Town Hall was that it was impossible to answer all the calls for help and requests for information about the situation. He added that they spent hours trying to communicate with the '112', without success.
The mayor recounted that he spoke with the former councilor Pradas at 2:30 p.m. because of the disappearance of a truck driver in the Benimodo ravine. He explained that he had gone to the area around 1:00 p.m. and there he coincided with the president of the Diputació, Vicent Mompó, who told him that they were trying to clarify what was happening, since the truck was there, but not its driver.
Around 5:40 p.m., he indicated, he went to the river and observed between 25 and 30 centimeters of reeds and containers carried away by the current. "It had already overflowed," he described. "Before 6 p.m. you could no longer access the Town Hall," he added.
That same day, he stressed, he received calls from "no one": neither from '112' nor from the Government Delegation nor from the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ). Nor did the ES-Alert reach him at the critical moment, about which he has pointed out that "it obviously arrived late." "I had the feeling that they left us abandoned. The feeling was one of helplessness. At that moment I did not have information about what was happening in L'Horta Sud. The neighbors were demanding information that we did not have," he insisted.
He explained that he learned of the first fatalities —a woman and her daughter— between 21:00 and 22:00 hours. He closed his testimony by emphasizing that the water surge was "sudden and unexpected," since it had not rained in L'Alcúdia for hours. "I had never in my life seen the Magro river overflow," he emphasized.
"BY INTUITION"
At the hearing held this Wednesday, the mayor of Polinyà del Xúquer, Óscar Navarro, also testified as a witness, and he explained that on the day of the flood they were taking measures "by intuition" in the absence of official information.
He pointed out that he remained in contact with other mayors in the region through a WhatsApp group and that, already in the afternoon, they obtained some data thanks to a Civil Guard patrol that was in the area.
Navarro indicated that they began to monitor the riverbed from 11:00 hours with officers from the Local Police and Maintenance staff, and he noted that the mayor of Cullera managed to speak with the president of the CHJ and conveyed to him the situation in Forata, which led them to "make decisions".
After checking that the river level was rising in a worrying way, he summoned the councilors, reinforced the shifts of the Local Police, and alerted a Social Services worker. "People began to be warned in the outlying settlements so that they would leave the area or come to the Town Hall," he added.
He indicated that the flooding began around 23:00 hours and that around 1:00 in the morning the water began to enter the urban center. In his case, he concluded, they did receive the ES-Alert issued at 20:11 hours.