Saint Barbara, Pray for Us
Rain is a primal part of Galicia from late September onwards. My husband tells stories of winters that began in the middle of September and let up only when June arrived. Winters of days that awoke in rain, and went to bed in rain. Winters of only a few days when the sun could be seen. Winters of water.
The weather is now changing, and in these past years, October has been an oasis of summer. Perhaps that is also changing our mindset, and we have begun to assume that the rains of winter won't arrive until much later. Which is why, when a cold front with its associated rain and wind passed by last week, we were surprised.
We were mostly surprised because we were caught off guard. The morning after the intense rainfall, I went out and saw many people cleaning the debris from gutters that had overflowed, and saw where rain and mud had crossed the road because of stuffed up ditches. Most of the small floodings that happened were due to ditches and gutters that had filled up with the trash of summer, and the first leaves of fall.
There is a saying here, "acórdase de Santa Bárbara cando trona" (he remembers Saint Barbara when it thunders). It refers to Saint Barbara being the protector from lightning, and how nobody remembers to pray to her until they hear the thunder. No one seems to prepare for the rain that everyone knows is coming, until it comes. The ditches in our township are cleaned at odd times. Perhaps in April the crews will come by, and then again in August. If the first rains aren't that bad, there's no problem. But if the first rains are downpours, then the wrappers and cans and plastic bottles everyone seems to throw out their car windows do become a problem. So does the grass and weeds that are now more than waist-high. No one bothers to clean out the dirt and grass that has accumulated and grown along the kerbs, either, until the water is pushed into the middle of the road and creates traffic hazards.
But it's become standard in Spain that problems only become problems when they appear. Before that, preparation consists mostly of pushing things along, and of saying, "mañana." Rajoy was an expert at that. The former prime minister pushed the Catalan problem along, claiming there wasn't a problem until it blew up in his face. Municipal governments do the same. There isn't a problem with not cleaning the roadsides, and there isn't a problem with urban planification that places buildings in harm's way. That last non-problem has been made more and more obvious in these years since the building bubble.
The intense microburst that devastated Sant Llorenç des Cardassar in Mallorca, and killed twelve people last week, was a one in a thousand year event, according to meteorologists. Yet, it could have been prevented or lessened. Over the years, especially in this century, buildings went up in the floodplain where the water would naturally overflow. The river was canalized, but the cement used in the canalization prevented any of the water from being absorbed, however minimally, into the ground.
Other examples abound. The creation of a campground in Biescas, Huesca, in the floodplain of another river was a travesty that came to a bad end in 1996. Another microburst in August of that year, with acumulations of from 200 to 230 millimeters of rain per hour, with eight minutes of around 500 mm per hour, caused destruction. Again, it was a rare event, this time a one in five hundred years event. But it killed 87 people.
The flooding of Vilagarcía, a few kilometers to the south of us, back in 2006, after a summer of fires that denuded the surrounding hills, and caused water to careen down, unimpeded, to the sea, was also exacerbated by man. Here, we learned that a former swamp, now a shopping center and park, was a natural outlet to most of that run off that now had no choice but to go through the city center, searching for the sea. The small river there is now also a canal, and there is an instance in which it was canalized through the basement of a new building. The contractor wanted to build at any cost on the parcel of land, and proposed the canalization of the river through the basement. However he managed it, he must have greased enough palms to get his wish and his millions from the sale of the building's flats.
The natural circle of the seasons is changing, and our reluctance to adapt to it means we have to clean up more than we should. Just spend the money to get the road crews to keep the ditches and kerbs clean. Stop building in floodplains, thinking they won't flood again. The mayors will end up spending less than if they have to call out the emergency crews to pump out water and clean away debris. Or search for bodies in the rubble. And municipalities should learn that water is a force that will win out in the end. If we impede its flow, it'll just push us out of the way.
The weather is now changing, and in these past years, October has been an oasis of summer. Perhaps that is also changing our mindset, and we have begun to assume that the rains of winter won't arrive until much later. Which is why, when a cold front with its associated rain and wind passed by last week, we were surprised.
We were mostly surprised because we were caught off guard. The morning after the intense rainfall, I went out and saw many people cleaning the debris from gutters that had overflowed, and saw where rain and mud had crossed the road because of stuffed up ditches. Most of the small floodings that happened were due to ditches and gutters that had filled up with the trash of summer, and the first leaves of fall.
There is a saying here, "acórdase de Santa Bárbara cando trona" (he remembers Saint Barbara when it thunders). It refers to Saint Barbara being the protector from lightning, and how nobody remembers to pray to her until they hear the thunder. No one seems to prepare for the rain that everyone knows is coming, until it comes. The ditches in our township are cleaned at odd times. Perhaps in April the crews will come by, and then again in August. If the first rains aren't that bad, there's no problem. But if the first rains are downpours, then the wrappers and cans and plastic bottles everyone seems to throw out their car windows do become a problem. So does the grass and weeds that are now more than waist-high. No one bothers to clean out the dirt and grass that has accumulated and grown along the kerbs, either, until the water is pushed into the middle of the road and creates traffic hazards.
But it's become standard in Spain that problems only become problems when they appear. Before that, preparation consists mostly of pushing things along, and of saying, "mañana." Rajoy was an expert at that. The former prime minister pushed the Catalan problem along, claiming there wasn't a problem until it blew up in his face. Municipal governments do the same. There isn't a problem with not cleaning the roadsides, and there isn't a problem with urban planification that places buildings in harm's way. That last non-problem has been made more and more obvious in these years since the building bubble.
The intense microburst that devastated Sant Llorenç des Cardassar in Mallorca, and killed twelve people last week, was a one in a thousand year event, according to meteorologists. Yet, it could have been prevented or lessened. Over the years, especially in this century, buildings went up in the floodplain where the water would naturally overflow. The river was canalized, but the cement used in the canalization prevented any of the water from being absorbed, however minimally, into the ground.
Other examples abound. The creation of a campground in Biescas, Huesca, in the floodplain of another river was a travesty that came to a bad end in 1996. Another microburst in August of that year, with acumulations of from 200 to 230 millimeters of rain per hour, with eight minutes of around 500 mm per hour, caused destruction. Again, it was a rare event, this time a one in five hundred years event. But it killed 87 people.
The flooding of Vilagarcía, a few kilometers to the south of us, back in 2006, after a summer of fires that denuded the surrounding hills, and caused water to careen down, unimpeded, to the sea, was also exacerbated by man. Here, we learned that a former swamp, now a shopping center and park, was a natural outlet to most of that run off that now had no choice but to go through the city center, searching for the sea. The small river there is now also a canal, and there is an instance in which it was canalized through the basement of a new building. The contractor wanted to build at any cost on the parcel of land, and proposed the canalization of the river through the basement. However he managed it, he must have greased enough palms to get his wish and his millions from the sale of the building's flats.
The natural circle of the seasons is changing, and our reluctance to adapt to it means we have to clean up more than we should. Just spend the money to get the road crews to keep the ditches and kerbs clean. Stop building in floodplains, thinking they won't flood again. The mayors will end up spending less than if they have to call out the emergency crews to pump out water and clean away debris. Or search for bodies in the rubble. And municipalities should learn that water is a force that will win out in the end. If we impede its flow, it'll just push us out of the way.
During my first winter of 2000-1, it rained every day from sometime in late October until sometime in June. My frieds said it happened only every 25 years. I went south for most of the next winter. It rained there more than in Galicia . . .
ReplyDeleteI remember that winter. I think it's the one I almost went berserk through lack of sunlight. I hope to save up enough to spend the winter of 2025 in the Canary Islands.
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