Gurabo Creek wreaks havoc after heavy downpours in Santiago

Santiago—“I thought I was going to die standing up,” was what went through Grisalí Peña’s head when she saw that her house, located in the Gurabo sector of Santiago, was totally flooded after the Gurabo Creek overflowed.

The 10th street of Gurabo still contains mud that indicates the passage of heavy water along the way. Meanwhile, on the edges of the river and the creek, the marks, landslides, and trees reveal the level of the flood.

“There is nothing left here; only the people are alive,” Peña narrates with apparent difficulty and tears in his eyes after having lost all his household appliances, the clothes of the children and adults in the house, the beds, everything.

She says that when the water overflowed, she was cooking, and a neighbor shouted: “Chiquita, the water,” but when she looked out, it was too late. Her children were in the middle of the flood, and she managed to climb to the second level. With the house

The 10th Street bridge was covered with garbage and sticks brought by the flood from the source of the river and the Gurabo stream, which converged at this point.

In other parts of Gurabo, the flood only “ate” the soil from the river banks, entering the yards, but did not penetrate the houses.