It seemed distant, but it is now a reality: Catalonia will carry out the first demolition of inhabited houses in flood-prone areas in Alcanar (Tarragona). The agreement between the Generalitat and the Town Hall was finalized this Friday and comes a few days after Joan Roig (ERC), until now mayor of the municipality, resigned from her position due to the physical and mental exhaustion caused by the management of five large-scale storms in seven years. Although the will of the Consistory and the Generalitat is that the purchase of housing is done by mutual agreement with the owners, Albert Dalmau, advisor to the Presidency, assured that there would be expropriations “if necessary”.
Residents of the L’Estona housing estate have had to rebuild their homes four times in the past seven years. Their homes, located above the Llop ravine, were flooded season after storm, making life there unbearable. This, added to the certainty that advancing climate change will make rains more and more frequent, putting their lives at risk, means that leaving is the only possible solution, making them the country’s first climate refugees.
In her last days as mayor and already in office, Joan Roig maintains the objective of ensuring that the citizens of the ravine stop living there before next fall. In fact, as he explained to EL PAÍS, the evaluations are currently being negotiated with the Generalitat. His replacement will take place as soon as possible, but until then he will take advantage of every day to ensure that the whole process ends in the best possible way for the neighbors concerned.
Expropriation is the definitive solution and this possibility has been on the table for years. In fact, it was the key that led Roig not to resign as mayor in 2023, even though he was on the verge of doing so. After another storm, he explained to his team that he was “overwhelmed” and that they had to start looking for a replacement. It is precisely the fact that he planned to expropriate the inhabitants of the ravine and that the municipality experienced a “quiet” year 2024 that made him back down. “There was a lot of management to do and I promised the neighbors that I would help them,” he says. After the October rains, he could no longer take it, even if he waited until the management of expropriations was on track to make the task easier for his successor.
Resigning from his position was not an easy decision, but he believes it is the best for the municipality and for his physical and mental health. Roig says he was “about to fall off the cliff” and that in such cases “you have to stop and breathe.” “I was literally suffocated,” he adds. He considers that a person in his situation cannot lead a municipal administration which finds itself in a context of continuous crisis, as is the case of Alcanar. He believes that it is also an act of protest, so that everyone can see that the situation in the municipality is very serious and that it has needed help for years. He does not believe that the supra-municipal administrations have done nothing, and assures that he has always received their support, but regrets that they were not quick and efficient enough. “Solutions take time to arrive and climate change has won the race for us,” he emphasizes.
Roig’s resignation went around the country and reached the ears of Pedro Sánchez. This Wednesday, the president announced that the State would finance flood plans for municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants. He recalled the case of Alcanar and how its mayor, forced to manage multiple disasters in a few years, transforming “emergency into routine”, had left office out of exhaustion.
The current interim mayor defends that “when a person no longer sees himself capable of leading an institution, he must step aside. We are not there to make money, nor to feed our ego, nor to warm a chair; we are there to serve people. When we cannot do it optimally, we must leave. That’s what I did.” Concerning who will replace him, Marc Chavalera, who until now was an advisor to the Treasury, says he admires his decision because, aware that new natural disasters will occur, he has accepted the responsibility of managing them.
The decision to resign from the town hall was accompanied by the assignment of the position of professor of geography and history in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Already intending to leave his position, he had registered for the educational pool at the beginning of 2025. In fact, since last week, he has already been working.
Hydraulic works project
Roig made his resignation official this Friday afternoon, but in the morning he signed the protocol for the execution of hydraulic works to avoid flooding in the Alcanar Platja area, in an act with the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, and the director of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), Josep Lluís Arenter. The protocol aims to build the necessary infrastructure and resolve the “historic” problem of homes located in flood zones, the government reports in a press release.
Previous technical studies prepared by the ACA concluded that, to avoid flooding of urban areas, a “comprehensive” hydraulic action was necessary, based on the communication of rolling basins, flow diversions and appropriate channeling, in addition to a solution to the presence of habitations in the same river bed.
Dalmau said that with the signing of the protocol, “a historic debt” of the government to Alcanar ends. “The final objective is to channel the ravine, but above all to provide a solution to the problem of existing houses, a solution which will come through dialogue,” he added.
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