Among the many scenes of “panic and fear” that, according to the mayor of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca, the city experienced last Thursday evening due to the historic storm of rain and hail, one has gone viral and has gone around the world. world. It is the image of a young woman standing on the hood of her car and holding on tightly to avoid being dragged away by the current of water and mud, until the firefighters rescue her in extremis.
The protagonist of the story, one of the most visible faces of the anguish experienced during the storm, has been identified. Her name is María L. and she is from the Teruel town of Monreal del Campo, the saffron town that has a museum dedicated to the cultivation of this delicate flower.
His family is well known in the town, since his parents, already retired, ran an electrical appliance store. They assure that relatives and neighbors of the aforementioned town in Teruel shared their anguish when they recognized María in the videos posted on social networks.
Something similar happened to everyone who saw the images. For example, the politician Pablo Echenique wrote on his Twitter account: “Very attentive to the terrible floods in Zaragoza. In almost three decades of living there, I had never seen anything like it. The images that come to me make my hair stand on end. I am in shock. They tell me that, fortunately, this woman was rescued by firefighters.” And it included the video with the images of María on the roof of her car.
That afternoon, María had gone shopping and was trapped, like many other cars, by the storm in the vicinity of Parque Venecia, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city. She ended up in the hospital, where she was treated for mild hypothermia. The storm caused at least nine people to have to be treated for various reasons.
Another 50-year-old woman remains in serious condition in the ICU of the Miguel Servet Hospital in the Aragonese capital after suffering various polytraumas.
At the time of the storm, Maria, who is the mother of a young child, was traveling alone.
A neighbor recorded the sequence that reflects how he fought to save his life from the onslaught of water, whose level and intensity of drag were increasing. He lived some distressing moments until the firefighters arrived with a specialized vehicle.
Different techniques were tried to save her, such as the use of ropes, although it was finally the firefighters who carried out the rescue. They approached the car to help the woman, who grabbed a firefighter in her arms to get into the truck and take her to a place out of danger.
María is already resting at home and, according to Heraldo de Aragón, she does not have the strength to speak to anyone.
Meanwhile, the municipal services are working with all available means so that the city of Zaragoza returns to normality as soon as possible.
The Zaragoza City Council is studying to request the declaration of a catastrophic area in the face of the “millionaires” damage caused by the storm of water and hail last Thursday.
The Consistory is currently collecting data and analyzing whether the requirements are met to bring the proposal to the Local Security Board next Monday. At the same time, a report will be prepared to deal with inclement conditions of these characteristics, as occurred with the great snowfall of Filomena. This was announced this Saturday by the Councilor for Citizen Participation and the Interior Regime, Alfonso Mendoza, and the Councilor for Firefighters, Ruth Bravo, after meeting with those responsible for municipal services in the Crisis Room to analyze the state of the most affected areas. .
After dealing with more than 400 incidents and 48 hours after the storm, the City Council considers that the city “has returned to normal”, especially after traffic was reestablished on the Z-30 in both directions. However, there are still conditions and access and cleaning problems in some specific points.
Mendoza has indicated that now begins a time to collect data and carry out studies to prevent a similar flood of water in the future. The intention is to follow the Filomena model.
As he explained, “Zaragoza had never experienced a storm like Filomena. So, what was done was to map all the emergency situations that occurred, they were studied and with all that a specific emergency plan for snowfall was created.”
He added that “we cannot think that since these phenomena only occur every 300 years, as some say, well, we’ll see, we have to be prepared. Our city has spectacular emergency services and we are going to ask them to analyze the situation that occurred and if there are alternatives so that this does not happen again”.
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