Originally Posted by Pollyana (Post 13284852)

I admit to playing a bit of devil's advocate here, and please just see this as objective comments.
I've worked with floods like this for many years, issuing warnings to councils, rescue workers, emergency services, and in the later years by text to the public. I've watched the disasters unfold, the houses swept away, the torrential floods that destroy everything; I've organised rescues for people stuck in trees, swept away in vehicles, stranded on their roofs. Its devastating, it stays with you forever, those you couldn't save haunt you forever. One of my last big floods in Australia early in 2022 involved a car swept away, 14 year old girl vanished. They found her body last week, I remember the incidemt like it was yesterday.
My point is though, that there were warnings. The disaster & weather warnings system over there isn't perfect but its pretty fast and thorough. But people still carry on. We warned of flash floods on specific rivers and very specific areas, but people still went out. Huge campaigns about "If its flooded, forget it" but people still drive into flood water. Warnings of cyclones bringing 20 foot storm surges but people refuse to leave their homes, and even go to the beach to watch.
Doesn't matter what warnings you give, people will say you are scaremongering, ignore the warnings, carry on with their lives.

Many people now seem of the impression that this disaster only happened because there were no warnings, or the warnings were late.
Sorry, but this would have happened anyway. Maybe a few people would not have lost their lives on the roads - but who is to say whether they would've been safe at home? People would have died anyway. Its sad but its true.
The disaster was going to happen, with or without the warnings, and while I'm sure the system is no more perfect than ours was, the focus now should be on helping the survivors & the recovery effort, not on blaming the message senders. A storm like that was always going to claim victims.


On the more subjective side, I've been in northern Spain over the weekend & seen much tv coverage of the disaster.
Also spoken to some people up here who say that if they had been warned of torrential rain, they would have shrugged, put on a raincoat & carried on as normal. Warn all you like, but you have to take human nature into account too.

Originally Posted by 1sexsmith (Post 13285260)

Red warning tomorrow in Málaga and Tarragona. But it looks like Thursday morning in parts of Valencia have potential to be bad.

Originally Posted by Chocolate eclair (Post 13285275)

Hoping that people have heeded the warnings of more storms. Not what these regions need on top of the catastrophic rainfall many of you have already endured.
Stay safe.

Originally Posted by Lynn R (Post 13285304)

We are in one of the areas of Malaga province where the alert level was raised to red late yesterday. We got the emergency alert with the siren noise sent to our mobile phones just before 11.00 pm (sent in both Spanish and English), that was a bit scary. All schools in the province apart from in the Ronda area have been closed. According to press articles about the weather yesterday evening the areas of La Axarquie where the heaviest rainfall is expected are about 30-45 minutes drive inland from us.

Accordinig to forecasts for our town the rain was due to start around 5.00 am. When we got up we could see there had been some rain overnight but it obviously wasn`t heavy enough to wake us up, and it isn't raining now.