The highway looked as if a tsunami had swept through, leaving debris of every kind including a gas canister, and at one moment a white horse appeared on the roadway. This is the scene the officer Juan Antonio, based in Alicante, witnessed on the highway near Torrent as he headed home to Ibi when the violent DANA storm struck, taking many lives.
Juan Antonio emerged unscathed after being stranded for six hours among about twenty vehicles between two flooded stretches in Algemesí. The journey toward the Alicante region could resume around three in the morning, and when he finally reached his home in Ibi and saw the flood’s devastation, he felt lucky to be alive, even as victims of the disaster faced a harsher fate. (Fuente: Diario Local)
He arrived in Ibi without telling his parents about the ordeal, and with little rest he reported to work at the Alicante Police Station at first light. He explained that the prior Monday he had booked a BlaBlaCar ride from Sagunto to Ibi. They picked him up around 7:30 p.m., and despite warnings of heavy rain they checked traffic sites and found no road closures, only delays. (Fuente: Diario Local)
Alongside the off duty officer were three travelers from Elche, Guardamar, and Algemesí. Just before nine in the evening they were traveling toward Torrent when the local police cut one highway access and redirected them to another point that was also closed. (Fuente: Diario Local)
Eventually they managed to reach the AP-7 and faced a scene unlike any they had seen on the road. It felt as if a tsunami had passed through as they continued to drive and encountered cars stopped on the highway. A nearby river and a flooded road forced them to turn back through the median, and as they approached Algemesí to drop off one traveler they crossed a flooded section and the car stalled.
The road is flooded
The road was flooded and the water reached the door handles of the car. Juan Antonio, conscious of the danger yet calm, and the others managed to exit through the windows as the water rose. Before leaving the vehicle, he urged everyone to remove their pants because the wait could be long and staying dry would help prevent hypothermia.
With the car movement easy, they pushed it toward a gas station about 500 meters away, where the flood had not yet arrived. There they ended up with around twenty cars that remained isolated, and although at that moment no one’s life was in immediate danger, water began to reach the gas station two to three hours later.
Identifying himself as a police officer, Juan Antonio looked for higher ground to place the vehicles. The BlaBlaCar car was started with a truck battery charger, and the officer helped move a group of women who were more frightened because their car nearly collided with a truck. An hour later the scene showed how the station had become flooded and at three in the morning a car from the lower area arrived and its driver said access was possible since the water was receding. They formed a line and moved together toward Almusafes, from where each vehicle headed to its destination.