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Whenever Almogía's mayor Toñi García wants to show strangers the extent of her Malaga province municipality, she takes them to a viewing point at the entrance to the town. It is right alongside the sculpture of a cyclist, placed there in honour of the hundreds of enthusiasts who pass through the municipality every day. The hilly and winding road to the town is a magnet for the fans of the sport.
From that spot there is a panoramic view that helps you understand the complexity of the impact that the recent 'Dana' storms have had here. A myriad of small roads and tracks criss-cross and divide up the rocky terrain. Like the network of veins and arteries in our bodies, they connect to scattered hamlets and 'cortijos' that go by names such as Barranco del Sol or Arroyo Coches. Almogía has a population of 4,500, but only 2,000 live in what constitutes the main 'town'.
The rest is spread over a maze of steep streams and areas reached by a 200-kilometre network of rural roads. Wednesday's rains acted like a chainsaw cutting through, and cutting off, daily life there. One day after the Dana, making a steady recovery looks like a titanic task. After all that has fallen out of the skies, it sounds ironic to say that there are many residents without water. Not just water either, many are without electricity and without passable roads to connect them to civilisation.
The local Civil Protection group's 4x4 vehicle is busting at the seams with passengers, but it does the job. With a good axle height from the ground it is the only viable means of people transport. The rural roads are still littered with small rocks and stones, washed away the day before by the force of the downpour.
Moving around Almogía is like zig-zagging through a maze on a grand scale. Only on a few occasions does one open one's eyes to the horizon. Then, almost infinite spaces stretch out before your eyes. To the east is Casasola reservoir, which has benefitted from the rains. Silence reigns. You can only hear the whistling of the wind and some vehicle engine backfiring. That anyone can live here seems a miracle.
One piece of that miracle would, for example, be someone like Manolo Romera. Manolo is a skinny, wiry man. He wears a cap and a slightly torn T-shirt. He is a goatherder and, together with his brother, runs a livestock farm with 400 goats. Water, mud and sludge filled their house and left them cut off from the outside world. Manolo is now smiling: "This morning they have pumped out the water and reconnected the road that leads to Almogía on one side and to Casabermeja on the other." After two days in which he has been more concerned about saving his animals than anything else, he is grateful for the return of something resembling routine. In his case, routine is to continue with milking duties.
"The heavy rain has left thousands of incidents," says José Torreblanca, head of the local police. In a town like Almogía, being in this position is the closest thing to an all-in-one job. His mobile phone number is public knowledge. One call follows the next. "Infoca is working in the area," he states with a calm voice. "Because the work on Casasola reservoir was finished. Otherwise, we would now be talking about a disaster in Almogía."
The trail of destruction and damage continues. The most urgent place to fix now is a hotch-potch of homes that goes by the name of Los Moras. The road and the bridge that connected the people who live there are now history. "We have been isolated for two days. We don't even have bread", says María Ruiz. She lives with her mother and her disabled daughter. She runs a small kiosk that is now out of business. When asked about what happened, she sums it up in a few words. "I have never seen so much water." The word isolation is redefined in Los Moras. For example, there is no mobile signal nor internet connection. To access just some wifi you have to go to the rural school and piggyback from there.
It's six o'clock in the evening and this is the third time Toñi García has had to charge her iPhone. When she hangs up on one call, the next comes in. "What, are you still without power?" she asks. "Send me a location by WhatsApp and I'll try to send you someone," she replies to the person on the other end of the line. It's like this all day long. A loop. One indignant neighbour. Then another. "I understand them. We try to do everything but, without the help of the higher authorities, this is going to be impossible", she admits, overwhelmed by the lack of heavy machinery and manpower. The word normality is now a foreign word in Almogía.
Countless streams continue to carry more water than they should. On Wednesday this innocent-looking liquid showed its full destructive potential. It uprooted trees, moved cars and made the foundation of one of the houses next to what used to be a bridge look like a holey cheese. Faced with the risk of the bridge collapsing, the head of the local police walks to his car and returns with a police tape to prohibit access. The scene, in the immensity of this ravine, is somewhat surreal.
Meanwhile the mayor attends to some 50 residents. Behind us children play in the puddles that have formed in the furrows left by the rain. From this bird's eye view it is as if Godzilla had taken a stroll through here. The contrast with everything that reminds us of everyday life is grotesque. "We want a bridge, we want a bridge," clamour the locals. The instability of the riverbed suggests that this request now resembles a utopian dream, prolonging the likelihood of many people being cut off for longer than what might be deemed a reasonable length of time.
"Everything I am doing to restore normality, hiring private companies that have diggers, electricians... I am doing all of this with objections coming from the budget-holder. If I have to wait for bureaucrats, my term of office runs out and we will still be in the same position. The residents need to see now that something is being done", says the mayor defensively.
It is a curious place for certain. In Almogía there are so many streams that each one has a nickname. The García stream, for example, is so named because it runs near the house of a family with this surname. It was these streams that overflowed on Wednesday, not the sea. Even so, the destruction of infrastructure is reminiscent of a tsunami. Mud, logs, undergrowth, fallen walls and impassable tracks as far as the eye can see.
Just a few kilometres from here, returning to Malaga city resembles an arrival into a parallel reality. The bars are serving beers and people are once again strolling through the city centre. All mobile phones have coverage and have started to ring again. A hot shower in Malaga washes away the mud. The faint smell of diesel lingers in the nose. In Almogía the irony is lost on the people as hundreds of locals spend a second night without drinking water.
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