Vitoria (EFE).- Vitoria will take days to recover normality after a downpour of water and hail that yesterday afternoon collapsed the city by flooding streets and sidewalks, breaking windows and dragging leaves and branches. The storm also hit the Álava countryside, damaging fields of potatoes, beets, cereals, sunflowers and legumes.
This “exceptional” storm that has led the Álava Provincial Council to announce financial aid for the primary sector and the Vitoria City Council to study whether to request the declaration of a catastrophic zone, something that it already tried without success after the historic hailstorm of 2009.
For this reason, the mayoress, Maider Etxebarria, has called for “prudence” and has advocated first for making a “clear diagnosis” of the damage, for which it is still “too early”. She has also asked the residents for “understanding” because the city “will take days to recover normality.”
Throughout the morning the City Council has put into operation all the resources in its power to remove the leaves and branches that yesterday clogged the 80,000 sewers of the city.
An operation that must also be done against the clock because more storms are expected this afternoon that could bring hail, although the City Council is confident that they will be less intense than yesterday’s episode.
Activated all resources
Just in case, all possible municipal resources are activated: gardening and cleaning personnel, police and firefighters, who will work in coordination to alleviate the possible effects of a new waterspout.
In any case, prudence is asked of the neighbors so that if there is a new storm it does not “catch them in the street”, said the Councilor for Security, Iñaki Guturbai.
20 sweeping machines are being used (the City Council has even rented several to work faster), of which 5 clean roads and 15 sidewalks. Efforts have focused on clearing access to hospitals and health centers, among other priority places, and freeing the sewers.
The storm broke out around 8:00 p.m. yesterday, Thursday. From that hour until midnight, the Vitoria firefighters received 200 calls and the Local Police received 310 calls, four times more than usual, Guturbai said.
The calls were mainly due to falling glass, broken skylights, landslides, leaks and pools of water, as well as requests for help after being hit by hail or suffering from panic attacks, according to what the person in charge of Security said.
Damages in the Álava field
The storm also affected urban transport and in the rural part of Vitoria there is also a “serious condition” in cereal and sunflower fields.
This episode has been felt beyond Vitoria and has also hit the Álava field. The most affected areas are the Llanada and the Montaña Alavesa, although Kuartango and towns in the Rioja Alavesa such as Labastida and Samaniego have also been affected.
Potato crops, beans, peas, beets, cereals and some vineyards have suffered damage and, although the cost cannot yet be calculated, in some places the fields have been “razed”, according to the UAGA agricultural union.
The deputy general of Álava, Ramiro González, who has visited the rural area to verify the damage first-hand, has announced financial aid to the primary sector to alleviate these damages.
From the Organization of Consumers and Users it is recommended “to collect all the evidence to be able to demonstrate the origin and consequences of the damage” before the insurers and the Insurance Compensation Consortium; while the Basque Consumer Institute, Kontsumobide, has advised reviewing the policies to check if they cover damage.
In addition to the Basque Country, storms of this type have occurred in other parts of Spain, such as Zaragoza, where a downpour yesterday caused extensive material damage.