Lanzarote drowned in a glass of water. Thus, with popular jargon, one could summarize what has been experienced in recent days on the island. While in other areas of the archipelago, and especially in Tenerife, the storm was felt...
Lanzarote drowned in a glass of water. Thus, with popular jargon, one could summarize what has been experienced in recent days on the island. While in other areas of the archipelago, and especially in Tenerife, the storm was strongly felt, here only the remains arrived. Some water, for a short period of time, and wind, yes, but nothing extraordinary on an island accustomed to air currents. However, and seeing some images after the supposed storm, it would seem that another Delta, or the Universal Flood, had passed through Lanzarote.
The storm passed on tiptoe through Lanzarote, but managed to bring to light all the structural deficiencies of the island. A port unable to remain operational in the face of any minimal weather contingency, floods, school classrooms full of water and humidity, old buildings falling to pieces and, above all, sewage to give and distribute.
In the case of Puerto del Carmen, it once again became a real spectacle, but not to sleep. One of the most emblematic beaches on the island was completely covered in fecal waste, in a mixture as repulsive as it was nauseating, which eventually ended up distributed between the sand and the sea. A vital contribution to pollution, which reflects Lanzarote's peculiar way of understanding blue flag awards and Biosphere Reserve titles.
And all this, after eternal works that have turned Puerto del Carmen upside down and that, for the moment, have not resolved the most essential thing. The excuse is that the pumping station motors have yet to be started, and that in a few months the problem will be definitively resolved. Like almost all the problems on this island, this one also has an "imminent" resolution. That little word that people are starting to fear, because imminence on this island can be a matter of years or decades.
But even more of a crime is what happened in the center of Arrecife. In this case, after a long time of ordeal, the residents and merchants saw their prayers answered and work was undertaken on the sanitation network, to prevent sewage, rats and all kinds of niceties from taking over their streets and premises after each rain. However, a couple of years after completing these works, history has repeated itself. And in this case, there is no excuse.
What happened in Arrecife reflects that the works and the million-dollar investment have been worthless, because since they were finished there has been minimal maintenance. A simple tour of the city allows you to see sewers completely blocked with earth, cans, papers and waste of all kinds, evidencing a total neglect in those responsible for their care.
And if these calamities were not enough, we must also add the floods that were recorded in Playa Blanca and the telephone problems that were generated in Órzola, in a municipality that is already too accustomed to deficiencies in coverage.
In short, a reflection of the backwardness that the island suffers in absolutely basic services, at least in the first world. And the fact is that sometimes, Lanzarote seems to be closer to Zambia than to Europe, and another example of this is seeing what some municipalities allocate the funds from Zapatero's Plan E to. Because putting up four lampposts or the sidewalk of a street should be issues that have been overcome and resolved, and not wait for money from the State for that, as if "Mister Marshall" were coming to post-war Spain.
Sometimes, cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes and any natural disaster seem to target the weakest, but the problem is that they are precisely the most vulnerable. And the same wind or the same rain cause very different damage if they fall on a shack that miraculously stands, or on a modern building, where even the lights turn on with just a snap of the fingers. And unfortunately, many times it would seem that in Lanzarote we are closer to the former than to the latter. Above all, judging by the image presented by many buildings in Arrecife, some of which have had to be sealed off after the storm, due to the risk of debris from the roofs falling onto the street.
And that Lanzarote barely noticed the storm. If the gusts of wind from a real storm, and even the water that had been forecast, had really been recorded, what would have happened on the island?
