Afraid I got the famine.... flashflood washed vegetable gardens away and drowned some of my meat chickens as they were at the cute and cuddly stage, but we are so much luckier than a lot of people who are injured or lost loved ones lets hope any more coming our way is of the more normal rain variety!

I live on the Placa Prado and how nobody was killed is a miracle.I've seen this in Japan but never expected it here.Just glad I waited to get my dish fitted Although on a more somber note a friend who works in the hospital just told me a couple of the injuries are really bad.

I believe that the total dead in Andalucia is 5 and in Murcia it's 4.

Here in Alora a couple of bridges are gone and damage to some roads, lots had to leave their homes as the water engulfed them.

A friend of ours that runs a B&B in the village near us has had their entire garden washed away, some others slept through the storm only to find when they woke that their kitchen table floated past them.

Those of us that escaped damage consider ourselves to be very lucky indeed,
I hope all of you out there have been as fortunate as we have.

Sorry
I was joking about the fire and floods earlier, I really did not think for one minute it would have been so bad

Glad you didn't suffer any damage. I have been reading in Diario Sur that 15,000 homes in Alora and surrounding areas are without a water supply as the floods have severely damaged pipework, and likely to be so for some days, and many people have no electricity either. Looking at some of the photographs of flooded homes, most look as though people who didn't have much to start with have now lost everything. How awful. If you hear of any fund being established to help people, please could you post details of it?

Meg, glad to hear that despite some misgivings you may have had the property is in the right place and you and the OH are weathering the storm from a secure location.
KR

I'm not sure just how bad the situation still is in Alora now over the weekend, we live 7 kms away from the pueblo and the roads were in a mess on Friday as we drove back home... so we've not been out since.

Some of our roads are still in a state of disrepair after the very wet winter two years ago... there is no money to fix the damage, so it's to be hoped that the government come up with some emergency cash now or the valley will be cut off in several places.

On Friday an appeal went out for clothing and blankets to be taken to the Casa de Cultura, but I'm not aware at the moment of any funds being set up, I'll let you all know as soon as I hear anything.

I do know that they are requesting people use as little water as possible due to damage to the pumping station. Fortunately for us our water comes from a different source to that in the pueblo so we are unaffected by that.

The electricity I imagine will take some time to fix, lines here are overhead not underground, and I know in the valley some of the pylons have been damaged.

Personally we have been very lucky, not only have we escaped undamaged by the flood, but the builders working next door extending upwards (semi detached) actually sealed the large hole they made in our roof just two days before the storm hit, what it would have been like if that had not happened I don't even want to think about!

I hope everyone here stayed safe and suffered no damage.

Villanueva del Rosario and Villanueva del Trabuco are very bad, quite a lot of houses wrecked, I was thigh deep trying to bale out a house just round the back of me on Friday, the force of the water blew the door off, it was only later I thought about my garage and my car which had water in. Loads and loads
of cars washed down into a heap under the bridge, if you can drive there are
no manhole covers left. Most of the village has no water at all and tankers
arrived with drinking water yesterday. My part of the village got water through
the taps yesterday evening as this end was worst affected and water needed
for cleaning out the mud. As far as I know the rest of the village still has no water. A friends house outside the village is totally wrecked the water is up to ceiling, the lady only went upto bed at 7am Friday morning as she was panicking about the rain, thank God she did as a few minutes later logs and trees came through the patio doors, rejas had to be cut to get them out
through the top floor, she did manage to save one of the stray cats that hang round her house but nothing else. it was supposed to have been her and her husbands 50th wedding anniversary party yesterday. Thank God it is dry now.

I feel really guilty about my gleeful original post now. I had no idea that the long awaited rain would be so devastating for so many people.

Seems divine retribution is alive and well as OH insisted I fit a towel heater in the bathroom and i managed to drill through a water pipe and we are now without water until Monday evening when our friendly local plumber can come to repair the pipe. Normally, I would be cursing and fuming but in the scheme of things and the devastation others are suffering it seems a minor irritation.

Been pretty bad in Lorca,..again,...Earthquake last year, now this.

The town has a record of terrible disasters going back a couple of centuries to when hundreds of people were killed.