Sergi Escribano Ruiz is an agricultural engineer and co-director of Agencia AGROA. Vladimir Ugarte is an anthropologist and consultant specialising in issues of citizen participation and innovation at Empodera Consultores. Since 2016, they have both been part of the Commonspolis operational team .
One week after the floods we are still in a state of shock, with more than 200 people dead and 80 still missing. Thousands of houses have been destroyed, we still have no subway, no regional train, no train to connect with the rest of the cities of the country, no roads…
This is not the time for analysis, we are still focused on helping us in cleaning houses and streets, in preparing hot meals, in helping our neighbors to get what they need to recover normality.
Your messages invite us to share, despite the difficulties, some reflections on the causes and effects of the catastrophe:
Among the causes that have contributed locally to amplify the tragedy we identify:
URBANISM: Construction in flood zones (residential or industrial) has been a cross-cutting urban policy of all democratic governments in our region, be they progressive or conservative. The absence of budgets aimed at executing plans already designed to improve the affected basins in order to face large floods is a reality that should make us question the priorities of infrastructure policies.
MOBILITY OF THE CITIZENS: Many people died trying to recover the car they depend on to go to work, to access food, to take their children to school… this mobility system is not adapted and needs to be urgently reviewed.
VULNERABILITY OF THE PROTOCOLS: We have no history of rainfall of such magnitude in such a short period of time in the region. We do not have infrastructures or emergency protocols adapted to the magnitude of the impacts of climate change. This situation is not an exception, it is a potential risk for all the territories in Europe where we usually feel safe.
GOVERNANCE: The availability of scientific data (weather forecasts, flow records, etc.) has not been taken into account to prevent the effects of floods, which gives an idea of the value that right-wing and extreme right-wing political spaces give to science. The result is a number of victims that could have been lower. The action of the (progressive) national government to activate public resources to facilitate the clean-up and reconstruction tasks, which are finally starting to be implemented a week after the catastrophe, is not exemplary either.
Among the effects of the catastrophe, we would like to highlight:
FRAGILITY OF BASIC INFRASTRUCTURES (WATER, SANITATION, TELECOMMUNICATIONS): In the areas most affected by the catastrophe, the population was isolated due to lack of access to networks and connections. This situation can be extrapolated to the electricity, drinking water and sanitation networks, which were severely affected by the floods.
CITIZEN ORGANIZATION: Their mobilization and solidarity have been incredible. Thousands of people, especially young people, have organized themselves to clean houses and streets, prepare meals, distribute basic necessities, go to the most difficult to access areas… The self-organization movement has also been unprecedented and opens a space of hope for the future. There will be much to recover and systematize from the hundreds of experiences of solidarity organization of citizens in the field of cleanliness, health, food, care for the most vulnerable…
CAPILARITY OF AID IN THE AFFECTED VILLAGES: The organizational response capacity at the local level has been key. The aid has been driven from the first days by the autonomy of grassroots organizations that have gone and continue to go to the affected places. In the face of the indispensable centralization of emergency aid, it is also necessary to strengthen the organizational autonomy capable of connecting with existing organizations directly in the neighborhoods. As has been shown with the hundreds of people and dozens of autonomous organizations that have mobilized to provide aid, efficiency in the emergency is also and above all local, territorial, autonomous and popular.
It is this that will generate the necessary conditions to reweave the social, cultural, care and life fabric in the affected territories.
The situation we are facing is unprecedented, and in this context of chaos it seems fundamental to appeal to the values of solidarity and respect for democratic values. The extreme right is taking advantage of this situation to hack the system, building an ecosystem of fake news that promote fear and hatred towards immigration, towards our own space of governance and towards the democracy we have, however imperfect it may be.
We need to build and disseminate narratives that value other approaches, other views and recover all the positive things that citizens and democracy are building thanks to this crisis.
