Healing the wounds of deadly floods one month on

A month after flash floods caused chaos and five confirmed deaths around Catalonia, locals in Conca de Barberà county, in the southern province of Tarragona, which was particularly hard hit by the downpours, are still working hard to recover and move on.

Weeks after torrential rainfall swept through the local area, the signs of its passage are still clearly visible, in the shape of fallen trees, mud and dirt, and damaged buildings on both sides of the Francolí river between Montblanc and its origin in L'Espluga de Francolí.

At ground zero in L'Espluga, the owner of the modest 'Les Disset Fonts' restaurant and hotel is making great efforts to repair the damage and recover the clientele, while nearby neighbors replace doors that were ripped away by the force of the water.

Putting lives back together

Beyond the town center, the tenants of the last working windmill in the area, the Guasch windmill, are putting their lives back together after the water swept away the livestock and even entire fields of trees and vegetables, which were the envy of the area.

Yet, if there is anything approaching a silver lining after the catastrophe, it is a strengthened sense of solidarity shared by the whole community, exemplified by a benefit concert on Friday that is being held as part of a citizen-led recovery campaign.

Fundraising concert

The concert in the Poblet monastery is the starter for a score of planned activities, and will feature TV meteorologist Tomàs Molina, as well as music groups like Buhos and Joan Reig's band, with the aim of raising funds to help those most blighted by the floods.

"Throughout this last month we've had to remake ourselves, starting from scratch," says Joan Carles Llao, the owner of 'Les Disset Fonts,' whose hotel restaurant was only saved from being entirely swept away by a thicket of plane trees.

Llao's family have had to remortgage the property to pay for the repairs, which amount to 80,000 euros, and the walls will soon be repainted to hide the marks that still show where the water almost reached the ceiling.

Repairing the damage

Yet, Joan Carles, who is working on repairing the damage seven days a week, is not put off by the great effort that still lays ahead in restoring the business to working order: "We're looking forward to getting on with it and seeing the customers return," he says.

A few meters away, Josep Maria Olivé, has spent the past month without a front door, after the water carried it away, and left his car upside down in his garage. He now has a new door: "We do what we can to repair everything, but there's still a lot to do," he says.

Perhaps the locals hardest-hit by the flooding were the owners of the Guasch windmill, Inés Vergara and Josep Maria Guasch, aged 74 and 81 respectively. On the night of the storm they watched through the window at "a river that looked like the sea."

In the flooding caused by the heavy downpours, the elderly couple lost 80 hazelnut trees that were around a hundred years old, their fruit trees, their vegetable garden, their chicken coop and a whole flock of goats.

The cost of the floods

One goat, 'Benvinguda,' survived, as did their dog, and a magnificent 20-meter-high cypress tree at the entrance to the estate, but the waters carried away part of the mill dating back to the 12th century, and they estimate the cost of the damage at 100,000 euros.

In all, the flooding cost the lives of five people – two more are still disappeared – with the total damage in the county estimated at 16 million euros. Yet, if the locals remain as defiant and together as they have done thus far, so does the hope of better times to come.