# British pensioner couple killed in street market flash flood in Finestrat, Alicante



## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

> Two British pensioners have been killed in a flash flood in a street market near Benidorm. Six other people are said to be slightly hurt.
> 
> Read more: British pensioner couple killed in street market flash flood in Finestrat, Alicante


a street market, next to a dry riverbed, in rainy season...............beggars belief


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

xabiachica said:


> a street market, next to a dry riverbed, in rainy season...............beggars belief


How awful.
Not the first time tragedy has struck in Spain because of use of a dry river bed.
You can see in the photo that the area has actually been surfaced with tarmac. Look at this from El País

La Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (CHJ), dependiente del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, abrió expediente sancionador en julio de 2010 al Ayuntamiento de Finestrat (Alicante) por realizar obras de asfaltado en el cauce del barranco de la Cala y le impuso una multa de 83.000 euros, al tiempo que le pedía que se abstuviera de ocupar el dominio público hidráulico con el mercadillo municipal, hasta no tener la autorización del organismo de cuenca.

Basically, the local water board had opened disciplinary proceedings against the town hall of Finestrat for surfacing this area, had fined them and had told them NOT to hold the market there until they had permission

Un matrimonio británico fallece por una riada en un mercadillo de Finestrat · ELPAÍS.com

Obviously, if you're going to a market you're not going to look and see if it's on a dry river bed, but if you are renting or buying a house I urge you to find out as much as you can about local rivers that can disappear for 50 years or so, but will come back in times of flooding


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> How awful.
> Not the first time tragedy has struck in Spain because of use of a dry river bed.
> You can see in the photo that the area has actually been surfaced with tarmac. Look at this from El País
> 
> ...


absolutely crazy - our 'dry river beds' burst & caused huge parts of the town to flood in Oct 2007 - & we are told to expect a Gota Fría storm of at least equal proportions this year

the schools have issued an _emergency evacuation procedure_ for the first time in the 9 winters we have been here 

you can actually see my dds' school from our urb. gate, but it's on the other side of one of the dry river beds - if it suddenly bursts its banks while they are at school........................there is no way we could get to them


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

xabiachica said:


> absolutely crazy - our 'dry river beds' burst & caused huge parts of the town to flood in Oct 2007 - & we are told to expect a Gota Fría storm of at least equal proportions this year
> 
> the schools have issued an _emergency evacuation procedure_ for the first time in the 9 winters we have been here
> 
> you can actually see my dds' school from our urb. gate, but it's on the other side of one of the dry river beds - if it suddenly bursts its banks while they are at school........................there is no way we could get to them


Ohhh Xabiachica, that's scary, I'm sorry.

But you know what you're doing. Just keep an eye on the weather and do what you have to do.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Ohhh Xabiachica, that's scary, I'm sorry.
> 
> _*But you know what you're doing*_. Just keep an eye on the weather and do what you have to do.


that's it exactly - we're very used to it now

we know to keep an eye on weather warnings - and the sky 

the worrying thing about yesterday was that there was no alert issued - there was a storm over Mallorca the day before which seemed to have been dying down & moving south rather than west to us - and just a shower forecast

when my girls left for school at 7:45 there was no rain & it wasn't even really that cloudy (although since it was still pretty dark it was hard to tell) - by 8:30 it was a veritable deluge!!

the ayuntamiento has been doing major drain clearing & tree trimming work in preparation - and there seem to be more street sweepers out clearing up fallen leaves - so hopefully they will have done enough to prevent disaster


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## MacRov (Oct 26, 2010)

A terrible loss of life. The thing is I don't see how they didn't know the bad weather was coming. I was driving up from San Javier to Alicante way early yesterday morning and I was basically following the storm all the way up the coast and it looked pretty menacing.
Surely someone looked out the window that morning.


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## Maimee (Jun 23, 2011)

How awful for their family losing both parents together, my condolences to them.


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