Counting the cost of Spain’s hellish floods, the government pledged $11B, local officials want $34B

• Spain’s eastern province of Valencia was hit hard by intense flooding last week.
• The government has pledged $11 billion to help it recover, but local authorities want $34 billion.
• At least 211 people were killed in the floods, according to local emergency services.

Spain said it will give about $11 billion to help restore Valencia after flash floods hammered the province last week — but local authorities there want three times that amount.

Historic, deadly flash floods — brought about by torrential rainfall — hit the area last week, killing at least 211, regional emergency services said on Tuesday.

Spain’s State Meteorological Agency said last week that it was the province’s most severe storm since 1987.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his government had approved $11.55 billion in loans and grants to help storm and flood victims.

However, a day earlier, the province’s president, Carlos Mazón, said local authorities had asked for an initial package equivalent to about $34 billion.

“The measures will serve to rebuild, relaunch, and mitigate the effects” of the storm, Mazón told reporters.

On Saturday, Valencia’s Chamber of Commerce estimated that up to 4,500 businesses had suffered notable damage, with potentially 1,800 severely impacted.

The floods affected many economic sectors, including agriculture, industry, and services, it said.

Automaking remains Valencia’s most important industry.

Cristina del Rey, the communications director for Ford Spain, told BI last week that her company’s Valencia plant had not suffered direct damage from the floods but was shut on Wednesday and Thursday.

According to a report from the Aon Spain Foundation, a private foundation that works to prevent and assist with natural disasters, the annual cost of natural disasters in Spain between 2016 and 2021, including floods, was between $940 million and $2.5 billion.

Local authorities on Sunday said that the heavy rains — part of a phenomenon known as “cold drops” — had caused “unprecedented” damage to infrastructure and human life.

The provisional death toll put it among the most serious natural disasters in Western Europe in recent years. Widespread flooding in July 2021 killed more than 200 people in Belgium, Germany, and surrounding countries.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Sánchez declared Valencia a disaster area, paving the way for extra funding for local authorities.

He said about 15,000 soldiers and police officers had been dispatched to the province, as well as 287 forest brigaders, around a hundred customs officers, 44 forensic physicians, and 600 specialized vehicles for pumping, cleaning, and supplying the affected areas.

Sánchez added that 98% of affected households now had power, and about 25 miles of roads and 46 miles of railway tracks had been repaired.

“We must continue working with more resources, more coordination, and greater effort until normality returns to all the municipalities and to all the homes affected by this tragedy,” he said.