“A very heavy downpour came from above very suddenly… and the water rose a meter or a meter and a half in a few minutes,” said the mayor of Riba Roja de Turia.
Elsewhere in the region, news began to emerge of people missing after being swept away by floodwaters.
However, the Civil Defense did not issue a warning to the residents of the Valencia region not to drive on the roads for more than two hours, after 8:00 p.m.
Many questioned the timing of the warning, which came more than 12 hours after Spain’s meteorological agency issued its first red alert.
Some say it came too late for people to seek shelter on upper floors or to get off roads busy with commuters returning home after work.
Paco was driving from Valencia to nearby Picocent when he was caught off guard by a flash flood that engulfed the roads.
He told the newspaper El Mundo that “the speed of the water was crazy” as it dragged the cars: “The pressure was enormous. I managed to get out of the car and the water pushed me against the fence, which I managed to hold on to, but I could not move.”
“It wouldn’t let me. It ripped my clothes off,” he said.
Patricia Rodriguez of Sedavi was also hit by the flood on her way home from work.
She told local media that the water began to rise as she sat on the road near Paiporta and cars began to float.
“We were afraid the river would burst its banks because we were right in the line of fire,” she said. She managed to escape on foot with the help of another driver and watched in horror as a young man nearby carried the newborn child to safety.
“It’s just as well no one slipped, because if we had we would have been swept away by the current,” she said.
Social media posts help paint a picture of the chaos that engulfed the region as night fell.
