The sky is cloudy in San Lorenzo And before the floodwaters are unloaded, Mateu Quina carries a sturdy, heavy piece of wood from the farmyard, fitting precisely onto the rails installed along the sides of his front door. It's not simply the sloping table typical of village houses, designed to channel water away from the street. There's a premeditated, homemade engineering behind this system, which Mateu installs almost automatically. He wants to prevent everything in his home from being buried under mud again if the torrent overflows, if the water surges like it did on that fateful October 9, 2018. That afternoon, he went upstairs with his wife and daughter. As they watched the rising water, they heard cars crashing against the now-protected door. Until one of them flung the door wide open. "The blast came strong and hit the neighbor's wall. In our house, all the furniture ended up at the back of the dining room. We stayed upstairs from six in the evening until one in the afternoon the next day without moving, until they came to get us," he recounts.

A year after the devastating storm, President Carlos Mazón has still not clarified the details of his controversial handling of the most virulent storm to hit the Valencian Community this century, which left more than 200 dead. Details about his actions on the day of the storm are still emerging piecemeal and often contradict previously reported information.

Did the absence of Valencian President Carlos Mazón influence the late formation of the DANA emergency committee on October 29th and the equally untimely dispatch of the ES-Alert? And what if, as the Popular Party maintains, the participation of the head of the Consell was not crucial, because he spoke by phone with the former Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas, a minute before her. dictate the content of the message And one before spreading it? These are two of the main questions that Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra's investigation has been unable to answer eight months after the catastrophe that devastated much of the center of the Valencian Community and resulted in the deaths of 228 people. Among the questions the investigation has been able to answer are whether the Generalitat (Catalan government) had ignored warnings warning of an extremely dangerous cold snap and that its response was always late and insufficient.