That is what the residents of Calahonda are asking themselves after extensive flooding beset the town.

The fact of the matter is that torrential rain cannot be blamed on municipal authorities, but the readiness – or lack of it – of a town to cope with such a phenomenon is quite another matter.

The cause of the problem – apart from the downpour, that is – was that the Rambla de Vizcarra was badly designed; this necessary watercourse had been covered over or bridged using inadequate specifications: the minimum clearance is stipulated as 1.80m, which was ignored – it was 60cm short of the minimum requirement.

Locals had been voicing their concern over this structure long before disaster hit, but their warnings were ignored, or at least, ‘not acted upon,’ resulting in house owners near the rambla having to wade around in mud up to their knees the morning after the rains. How the structure was allowed in its present form in the first place, with a primary school right next door, is something that will receive a lot of critical attention in the near future.

Engineers from the regional and national authorities, who work out the specifications for these kind of structures base their calculations on 100-year maximum flow and 500-year maximum flow; in other words, using rainfall records for the last 100 years to find out what was the maximum water volume that a particular water course experienced in that time. The 1.20m clearance for the covered Rambla de Vizcarra could not cope with the 100-year maximum.

So who designed and who authorised the inadequate structure? The Provincial Delegate for the Depart of Environment said that their experts had examined municipal records to find out when it was built, and it appears it was around the 1940/50’s. Obviously, this was long before the existence of our present regulations; a time when you did what you were told and never questioned the authority of the regime. Bear in mind, as well, that back in those days it rained a lot more than nowadays, but with the difference that it was more evenly spread out.

But it is not only the case of inadequate provisions but a general change of climate and the after effects of forest fires. At first Town Hall inspectors suspected that building waste or greenhouse earth works had produced the tremendous amount of mud and stones that the flood brought down, completely burying the bridge structure. However, their findings were that the majority of this material came from higher up in the mountains and was produced by soil erosion caused by the disappearance of stabilizing vegetation, which had been destroyed by recent mountain fires – there have been five in recent years.

In the meantime, machinery is at work to dig under the cleared bridge to achieve the necessary 1.80m clearance, but they have no way of knowing what they will encounter under there – it could be bedrock. Perhaps when the bridge over which Calle Nautilus runs was built, it did have more than adequate clearance, but in the following decades the water course has silted it up?

There are other problems in the shape of building foundations near the structure that can’t really be touched, and what’s more, they have discovered that one of them is not connected to the main sewers but merely empties out onto the rambla.

But it’s not only problematic to gain more clearance height – widening it is even more complicated, for obvious reasons.

Finally, the damage area includes 200 dwellings and 50 cars, but at least the town didn’t have to lament injuries or deaths. Algo es algo.

(News: Calahona, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)