Valencia was hit by heavy rains and severe flooding on October 29. The phenomenon nicknamed “cold drop” claimed the lives of 214 people in the area. As the editors inform, the musician Igor Kmeťo Jr. was also in the area at the time, who told them about the threatening moments.
The musician has been living in the sunny country for 2 years, but until recently lived in a sublet. He and his girlfriend were aiming to sign a contract and pay a deposit for a new apartment, but it almost cost them their lives. “We thought we were dreaming,” he said at the beginning. They were saved by not being in a hurry. They left Slovakia by car and they stopped for some time in both France and Italy.
Little did they know what disaster they were heading for. “We didn’t listen to the news, we played songs in the car. We got into a classic traffic jam, the only strange thing was that not a single car could pass in the opposite direction. After half an hour I found that a huge wind had risen. In the distance we saw lightning and a terribly cloudy sky. People were getting out of their cars, watching what was happening and how long it might take. It was about eight o’clock in the evening,” he described their arrival in the city.
When Igor’s girlfriend decided to get out of the car and find out what was going on, she was almost blown away. “But still no one knew what was going on. I wrapped it up by saying we’d use the nearest exit. We reached the outskirts of Valencia and suddenly I came across a large puddle. I went back again. Some of the streets of Valencia where the navigation was taking us were already closed, but we got to the other side of the city and connected to the road to Alicante. A wide riverbed runs alongside it, which was always dry beforeKmeťo continued.
Igor concentrated on the road and did not pay much attention to the surroundings. Only when he stopped again in the traffic jam did he find that water was flowing in the trough, which had always been dry before. “I got out of the car and couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw everything swimming in that trough. Cars, trees, roofs of houses, everything was flowing. I got a terrible anxiety attack. God, what are we going to do now? I couldn’t even film it on my cell phone. All I could think about was how to escape as quickly as possible,” he described the menacing sight that appeared to him.
People were in panic fear. “On the edge of the trough was the letter G, and when I found out that it disappeared in two minutes, I knew that the whole thing would spill out within an hour at the latest. We sat in the car and started praying normally. I told the dude – get ready, right? we take the most important things and run on our own. But there were thousands of people like us,” said Igor. Fortunately, the column started to move slowly.
After long hours, they managed to reach a safer area. “On the way, we already saw fallen trees, an overturned truck, it seemed to us that we were in a bad dream. Finally, we managed to reach the higher village of Rita Rocha, which is located about 30 kilometers from the city. Furthermore, the police did not let the drivers go. We parked there at three in the morning and slept in the car“, he described the situation. They spent two days in the village. There was no water or electricity and they couldn’t get anywhere. Only the gas station was working. “While we could, we filled up with gas, bought a bucket of water and the most important food,” he continued.
But they didn’t want to wait any longer in the village, so they looked for other ways. The bridge by which they reached the interior was washed away by the water. When they tried to pass through the surrounding villages, tape was put up before the start and the police would not let anyone in. Then the road to Barcelona opened and Valencia was completely blocked. A hundred kilometers before the finish line, the pair decided to return home.
The village believes that his cool head saved them. “I tried to stay calm, not to panic. In Valencia we could have been stuck, at best we would have stayed on the roof of the car. We really escaped the flood. There I began to believe in God even more, because no one else would help us. That was no accident,” he thought at the end.
