The wind is a hallmark of Lanzarote, even a generator of energy for the island, but it can also be a generator of disasters. These days mark one year since, in the early morning of November 28 to 29, the wind in Lanzarote reached a speed of more than 90 kilometers per hour, according to data captured at the Guacimeta airport. Other sources speak of gusts that exceeded 130 kilometers per hour. Numerical differences aside, the wind caused a material catastrophe in a good part of the Archipelago, including Lanzarote, although it was not the most affected island.
The name "Delta" is already part of the imagery of the people of Lanzarote, who certainly associate it more with the tropical storm than with the sediments that form in the mouths of rivers, among other things, because there are no rivers in Lanzarote. The same has happened with the possibility of suffering the effects of tropical storms in the Archipelago, a phenomenon hitherto unknown in these latitudes, which the Canarians suffered in a real way a year ago. Since then, several alerts have been issued by the General Directorate of Security and Emergencies of the Canary Islands, which have put authorities and citizens in check.
Lanzarote was one of the islands declared by the Central Government as a "catastrophic zone." On November 29, the island woke up with trees and electrical and telecommunications poles on the ground. With private homes whose roofs were no longer on the walls, windows, canopies and all kinds of urban furniture destroyed. Sports facilities that looked more like battlefields and crops that were devastated and without volcanic gravel. In a few hours, the firefighters made more than a hundred sorties throughout the island where the fall of walls, poles and trees caused damage to homes and made it impossible to circulate on streets and roads.
Aid that does not arrive
A few days after the storm passed, the Council of Ministers approved a series of aid measures to alleviate the economic losses caused by the Delta, but to this day, "we have not seen a penny in the City Council," as José Torres Stinga, mayor of Haría, clearly stated, whose words were corroborated by the municipal officials of other Consistories on the island.
The Insurance Compensation Consortium, which depends on the Ministry of Economy and Finance, covers damages to people and property caused by natural disasters, among which the Delta is classified, but on the condition that they have taken out a damage or accident insurance policy with a company. In the case of Lanzarote, some city councils did not have all the municipal infrastructures insured and the same happened with the residents whose homes or fields were affected. These people would have, according to what was promised, the option of benefiting from the State aid, of which no one has heard anything again, after submitting all the data required by the Central Government.
As explained by the Minister of the Presidency and Finance of the Cabildo, Luis Arráez, in the case of repairing damaged public infrastructures, the State would contribute 50% of the total cost, the Government of the Canary Islands 45% and the City Councils 5%.
The Government of the Canary Islands is not far behind, because although they have sent experts to assess the losses and have requested abundant documentation from those affected so that they could benefit from the promised aid, a year after the disaster they have not transferred these subsidies to the municipal institutions, although in these days, some farmers and even the Cabildo, have received notification of the entry of the aid in a few days.
Most of the City Councils complain about the huge amount of documentation that they have had to present to the institutions, which have not yet resolved anything. The Cabildo of Lanzarote adopted the role of intermediary between the Consistories and the Regional and Central Government. The Minister of the Presidency and Finance, Luis Arráez recalls "how complex and long the entire valuation process has been." According to the Minister, the transfer of aid has been divided into three phases: aid for the works executed, for those that are being executed now and a third, for those that have not yet been executed, aid that will not be delivered until the Institution in question, justifies the completion of these works. This division complicates things, because according to Arráez, "it is like the hake that bites its tail, because we do not have money to face so many works, but in order for them to give us the aid we have to justify the realization of the repairs."
Disparate valuations
The process of assessing the damages caused by the virulence with which the Delta phenomenon presented itself has been long and tedious. Each City Council calculated the damages in its municipality, which together with the total calculated by the Cabildo, amounted to more than six and a half million euros. Valuations and requests for aid that were presented to the State and the Government of the Canary Islands, so that in turn, they could be reviewed by a Technical Commission, whose final verdict did not arrive until six months later and with figures considerably smaller than what had been considered from Lanzarote. Specifically, the Technical Commission estimated at just over three million two hundred thousand euros the amount of economic losses and damages caused by the famous Delta, less than half of the numbers calculated by the Cabildo and City Councils.
In the distribution of money that the coffers of the island and municipal institutions will receive, the Cabildo will receive the largest amount of resources, with 851,000 euros, followed by the City Council of Haría, the town most affected by the storm, to which 731,644 euros will be allocated.
[A danger that is not known if it will return->9697]
[There are things to do in the municipalities->9698]
[The forgotten ones of the Delta->9699]
