You step out of your front door and are immediately blasted backwards. You try to look around but are blinded by driving rain. The air is filled with a roaring sound: intense wind, and the voices of swollen rivers bursting their banks. The rain begins to fall harder…
For a period of weeks here in southern Spain, we had so much rain sweeping through the region, as much as 120mm on one day. Storm Leonardo brought days of downpours and extreme wind, with gusts of up to 150km/h.
Merim, a mother of two, woke up on the morning of February 5 to find her house in Bayacas cut off from the rest of the world. Like many small villages in the Granada region, the road to Bayacas was a river. Along with other Andalucían rivers, the River Chico had burst its banks.
The mains water supply in Bayacas comes from the Chico, which usually flows gently down from the Sierra Nevada peaks. So much of the water is diverted for agriculture that by the time it reaches Órgiva, the main town some 2km from Bayacas, there’s not much flow. But the raging torrent was so intense that it burst the pipes, cutting off the mains supply to the village.
Usually Merim would go to Órgiva for shopping and other necessities by driving or walking down the river track. But it was devoured by the river. The other option was to cross the Chico to reach the paved road leading around the mountain and then to town. But the river has eaten the bridge.
On the other side of Órgiva, the community of Cigarrones was at severe risk. Much of the community is made up of temporary homes, vans and caravans, in the river bed of the Guadalfeo, a much wider river than the Chico, cutting through the whole valley.
Those who didn’t act quickly had to watch their vehicles being submerged.
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A tradition in Cigarrones is the open mic night, held for many years on a stage made out of an old bus. On the night of the flood there were groans, tears and some sad laughter as the river inundated the stage.
Finally, amid farewell cheers, the river picked up the entire bus and carried it away.
The region is not generally prepared for rain; the average number of sunny days here is 320 a year, compared with 50-60 a year in the UK.
The landscape is designed to hold water. The countryside abounds with artificial reservoirs, essential life-savers during the scorching summer months (which in 2025 saw 876 forest wildfires).
Of course, Andalucía is not actually a desert. When the Arabic invaders first crossed over from north Africa in the 8th century, in comparison with their arid homeland they reportedly saw a water-filled paradise.
In Órgiva, some residents felt abandoned. “They came to evacuate me from my house,” said Alexa. More than once she watched the River Chico come so close that she thought it would wash away her home; but other than evacuating her family, the authorities offered no help.
So she took matters into her own hands. She and some friends spent one afternoon pushing rocks into the gushing river to divert the flow away from her home.
In Bayacas, those who found themselves in the ironic situation of being trapped behind a wall of water but with no running water in their houses turned to the ayuntamiento, the town hall, for help. But 48 hours later they still had not received aid: though emergency water points had been set up in other parts of the town, the isolated residents could not access them. In a neighbourhood effort headed by Merim, they wrote a press release detailing the precariousness of their situation.
The water supply was restored in Bayacas the next day.
Charlotte Ashwanden is a freelance writer living in Spain, where she organises community events and is a peace project coordinator
