Adra watercourse excluded from Junta plans

RAMBLA DE LAS CRUCES is the watercourse that caused so much havoc in Adra last month.

Torrential rain during the September 7 storms caused a flash flood, turning the town’s principal streets into torrents half-a-metre deep that inundated ground floors and garages, smashed shop windows and swept along vehicles and anything else in their path.

The town’s emergency and municipal services worked flat out to re-establish normality, answering dozens of calls for help. An office was later set up to enable 400 home and business owners affected by the flood to apply for official help.

The culprit was the Rambla and now Adra town hall also wants official help.

It will ask the Junta de Andalucia to add it to the 24 watercourses, streams and rivers that need urgent attention under its flood-prevention programme. Instead Rambla de Las Cruces is classified as a Level D risk, the lowest category of all.

The Rambla needs channelling inside and outside the town to prevent a repetition of last month’s flooding, said Adra’s mayor Manuel Cortes.

“The Junta de Andalucia would be more than justified in recognising and including the Rambla de Las Cruces amongst its priorities in preventing floods after seeing the consequences of the September rains.”

The town hall also intends to ask the administration to clean and channel the bed of the River Adra and repair its banks throughout its course.