The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, spoke this Monday at a press conference to ask the population affected by the floods in Teguise and Arrecife to report the damages to the Emergency Consortium in order to "compensate them."
"We ask individuals that, all those incidents that have been caused by these rains, to go to the Emergency Consortium and call 928 80 40 04," Betancort indicated during his speech, accompanied by the mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque, and the deputy mayor of Arrecife, Echedey Eugenio.
In this sense, the island president has pointed out that the Cabildo and the affected municipalities have agreed to identify and quantify the incidents in homes and private spaces through the technical offices. "We are going to evaluate each and every one of those incidents to, after having that information, request the necessary reports to put all the appropriate measures," he continued.
After summarizing this information, Betancort has announced that he will present a report to the Government of the Canary Islands and the Insurance Compensation Consortium.
Thus, the Cabildo of Lanzarote has made available to the affected municipalities "all the employment plans we have" to recover the affected areas. Meanwhile, it will maintain the island emergency plan until "normality is restored." "We are going to try to put all possible means," the island president promised.
Four hotels in Costa Teguise had to relocate the tourists who were staying in them, although some have had to leave because they could not find available accommodation. Of those four, three remain closed: the HD, which will now begin a renovation that was planned for later; the Hotel Salinas, with electrical supply problems, and which will take several weeks to reopen, and the Santa Rosa. The manager of the Consortium, Enrique Espinosa, has said that it has already been warned that the electrical stations of hotel complexes cannot be buried because they flood, and has assured that "the recovery is on the right track."
Regarding possible compensation to those affected, the island president has stressed that he "cannot promise what he does not have on the table."
Meanwhile, he has defended that before requesting the declaration of a catastrophic zone, "there are some previous steps." In the same way that he does not rule out, "if the conditions are met," requesting this declaration, which the municipality of Arrecife has already announced. "I cannot launch here that I am going to go to a declaration of a catastrophic zone, without having the reports, without knowing what the solution is and without giving the affected person the guarantee that they will effectively obtain that aid," he concluded.
Likewise, he has thanked the collaboration of the business sector and citizens, and has acknowledged that there has been a "historical deficit of investment in hydraulic works" on the island and inaction in that sense "from some time ago."
Regarding the warnings about the rain, he stressed that in Lanzarote "there was a green light from the (State Meteorological Agency) Aemet" until the time when the downpour fell, as well as a pre-alert from the Government of the Canary Islands.
And in that sense, Betancort has assured that he will ask the State "to change the radars" to detect the rains, while he has reproached that there are public officials from Lanzarote in Madrid who have not called him to make themselves available to the Cabildo.
For his part, the first deputy mayor of Arrecife has insisted that there was no prior warning from Aemet and that in Arrecife there are incidents in four schools, which will not affect the resumption of classes once Easter Week has passed.
On Saturday, up to 120 liters per square meter were recorded in Tahíche, 100 in Costa Teguise and more than 60 in Arrecife. Thus, 200 incidents were recorded in the capital of the island and 75 in Teguise, of which 215 were for water drainage, 16 for obstacles in traffic and four for interruption of basic supplies such as electricity and water.