storm therese flooding puerto de la cruz businesses

Puerto de la Cruz Businesses Flooded by Storm Therese Deluge

Knee-deep chaos in Plaza del Charco

The torrent of water that flooded the Plaza del Charco in Puerto de la Cruz on Tuesday night sowed panic in some of the restaurants and businesses surrounding it. The rain from Storm Therese was incredibly intense for over an hour. “It was terrible. The water came up to our knees,” recounts a waiter from the Divino restaurant in the Olimpia Shopping Centre, as he continues to bail out water and mud. The premises has two floors. “The stairs you see there, they weren’t visible. The water was level with the ground floor and reached that height halfway through the downpour,” says another restaurant employee, Mayra Rodríguez Hernández. She shows videos she recorded on her mobile phone as if the listener’s disbelief could shatter her account. “It was like that for more than an hour,” she points out.

Restaurants inundated with mud and sewage

The images show the shocking impact of the torrent of water crashing onto the awnings of an interior courtyard, but the sound of the relentless, forceful rain pounding the ground is even more striking. The volume of water that entered the premises left its mark on fridges, freezers, and other furniture. Some items even began to float as almost half a metre of mud, sewage, and rainwater accumulated. Another of her colleagues arrives with mop handles and utensils to bail out the entrance: “They said the sewerage system was fixed in this area, and look what happened last night,” he says indignantly. Divino smells of intense damp and “filth,” describes another waiter cleaning mud from his legs. He is wearing gloves and to all his statements, Mayra nods in agreement. She needs to narrate what happened and states emphatically that “we were very scared.”

Tourists’ surreal reaction to the flooding

This feeling of anguish was not shared by the tourists dining in Divino. “People wanted us to keep serving,” they exclaim with laughter. “It’s incredible how, seeing the chaos that was unfolding, they still wanted to keep ordering,” adds one member of staff. Neither the sandbags placed at the door nor a small drain within the bar area managed to save Divino from the waterspout that turned the Plaza del Charco into a huge lagoon.

Neighbouring businesses share the ordeal

The terrible experience Therese left for business owners around the Plaza del Charco is a shared one. At Divino’s door, the owners and waiters of the corner establishment share their experience with their neighbours. It is the La Bianca pizzeria. Its terrace extends along one of the alleyways surrounding the port square, a route down which water poured torrentially during the storm’s worst night in the North. They had to open one of the external shutters of the premises, usually closed, so customers could find some way to leave. They were also reluctant to do so. Similarly, that inappropriate behaviour was repeated on Wednesday morning when, despite being engaged in cleaning tasks, people approached them to ask for drinks.

“Never seen so much water here”

“I had never seen so much water here as I saw that night. A few months ago there was a small flood, but nothing like that night,” declares one of the owners of the corner establishment, María Lucía Pérez Suárez. “We called the fire brigade to pump out the water, but they never came. I suppose they were dealing with more serious incidents,” she reasons. The most complicated moment of the night for La Bianca was getting the customers out. “It was an important and tense moment. There was no way out until we found the rear shutter,” she adds. La Bianca – ‘the white one’ in Spanish – was looking somewhat brown from the accumulated mud and silt. However, “we’ve already managed to clean the premises almost completely. We are waiting for the insurance to assess the damage,” explains Pérez Suárez.

She does not know the full economic extent of the rain-related losses, but “just with the lost stock we lost quite a lot. Everything that was on the floor was floating from all the water that came in,” she describes. An army of people clean tirelessly, one by one, glasses, plates, and other crockery; while others, mop and brush in hand, get the floor and the area of the premises furthest from the door ready. Despite the intense rain that ruined more than a day’s work, they have the capacity to smile and even joke.

Cleaning up and carrying on

Pérez Suárez seems to travel back in time to Tuesday night: “The water was coming down that alley. The puddle reached halfway up that terrace where people are sitting,” she points about 20 metres away. “They call it the Plaza del Charco [Puddle Square] for a reason. Everything claims what is its own,” she adds anecdotally. The passage of Therese through the Plaza del Charco will, fortunately, be just a memory in a few weeks for all the members of La Bianca.

The entrance to the Olimpia Shopping Centre is occupied by two employees and the owner of the Don Camilo Street Food pizzeria. They are forcefully pushing the brown water that remains in the building’s hallway. It is the anteroom to a multi-level facility, like the Divino restaurant. There are several offices, apparently abandoned, that have over half a metre of water inside. Tables, chairs, computers, and absolutely everything inside is floating. It seems no one has been there, nor are they concerned about the state of the premises.

The owner of Don Camilo pizzeria, Corrado Signorello, is calm. Despite Tuesday’s rain, “we weren’t scared. We were worried about the damage so much water could cause, but we didn’t fear for ourselves,” he confesses. It caught them “in the middle of service. We were in the middle of dinner service, with customers eating and everything. We didn’t expect it and it completely surprised us. The water came up to just below our knees,” he recalls. He does not yet know what the damage from Therese’s rain will be because “we have to check the materials, the pizza doughs and the products. But now we are focused on cleaning to continue with business today. You have to get on with it,” states Signorello as all the staff continue pushing water towards the street drain.

Contrasting scenes and a return to calm

The rain hurled violently by Therese over Puerto de la Cruz on Tuesday only severely affected several businesses on the west side of the Plaza del Charco. On the other side, normality prevailed. The remnants of the vast quantity of water left some traces, but the contrast was stark. No one would say the entire square had been flooded if they only looked at the side closest to Calle Quintana.

By 8:30 am on Wednesday morning, water was flowing at great speed down the Playa Jardín ravine. Its arrival at the coast stained the sea along the Puerto de la Cruz shoreline brown. Despite this, many people decided to enjoy nature. Some even crossed the cordon placed on the strip where the watercourse meets the sea, risking slipping and falling. By midday, temperatures rose and gave way to calm in Puerto de la Cruz. Dozens of people were on the sand of Playa Jardín, walking or simply watching the water run down the ravine.

Source

Scroll to Top