La DANA – Experiencing Extraordinary Situations in Another Country – My October
To be honest, the beginning of this month was very similar to other ones, with lots of gatherings, settling back into Valencia, and more. However, this month, La DANA hit Valencia and nearby villages, and I want to talk about it in this blog.
As someone living in Silla, we were lucky not to face any direct effects of DANA—just some water outages, a few electricity issues, and in the first days, all the markets in the pueblo were empty. But it didn’t take long to recover from this initial panic. However, our train line was heavily affected by DANA, and now there’s no direct connection to the city center except for a few hours on weekdays. It’s frustrating not knowing when or how this will be resolved.
On the other side, we tried to follow what was happening and saw how people were actually just trying to “survive” after DANA. The first 3-4 days were really hard for them. It’s almost impossible to empathize with losing your house, shop, restaurant, or car in just a few hours, with no way to save it in that moment. Over 200 people are dead or missing now, and it’s incredibly hard to face this type of situation, adapt, and then find a way to recover.
As a person from Turkey, it’s impossible not to compare this to the earthquake in Turkey, where six different cities were affected. I can say that every time this type of natural disaster happens, my hope in people and solidarity grows. Seeing how people come together individually to gather food, water, clothes, and organize efforts to reach those in need so quickly—that’s something only a spirit of solidarity can achieve. But on the other hand, I lose trust in the governments and people in charge. These situations show if those in power are competent enough to handle such crises, and I have to admit, after everything that happened in Turkey, I’ve gotten used to not receiving help on time. Here, I was actually surprised by how slow bureaucracy can be and how long it took to get direct help to those affected.
I believe this is the real experience of living in another country and witnessing these things firsthand. I hope the city and its people recover from DANA as soon as possible. As I said before, it’s really hard to empathize directly with something like this. A few days later, it’s easier for me to return to normal, but for the people who experienced it directly, it’s a completely different story—it could take years to heal. I hope the city won’t forget what happened quickly and that they’ll take more precautions to prevent it from happening again.
