“It is as if a steamroller had passed through my orchard”
“My garden is as if a steamroller had passed. Only the stems of the plants remain. Not even the grass has been left standing”. A resident of Andorra thus summarizes the appearance that his small irrigated plot next to the town presented this Thursday after the passage of the hail storm, torrential rain and gales that last wednesday “razed” the fields that surround the town. In the urban area, the scene was marked yesterday by low-lying floods, cars with broken windows, roofs full of leaks and the ground covered with leaves and branches torn from the trees.
The members of the Board of San Macario, made up of 12 local couples in charge of maintaining this sanctuary, have gone up to check the effects of the hailstorm on the patron saint’s hermitage and in the park that surrounds it and have found a “carpet of leaves and branches” detached by the impacts of the hail that covered the earth, as explained Sergio Bielsa, member of the Board. Along with the remains of vegetation that cushioned the ground, the group of volunteers found dozens of dead birds. Bielsa has indicated that the large size of the hail -close to that of a chicken egg- and the strong gusts of wind that accompany it they destroyed small birds, such as swallows or sparrows.
The members of the Board have been able to verify that the water had infiltrated into the hermitage and that the windows were broken by the hailstorm. In addition, “the facade, recently painted and restored, has been full of chips caused by the blows of the hail.” Sergio Bielsa has summed up his impression of the storm and its effects stating that “I had never seen anything like it in Andorra before.”
Javier Ginés, a neighbor, has had to shovel all morning with the help of a relative to clear his garage door because the layer of hail accumulated in the access, about 60 centimeters, blocked the exit. He has explained that he had to use a hoe to chip away at the thick ice crust that covered the hail piled up by the water that, during the storm, overflowed the sidewalks of the street and poured in the direction of his garage, located on a downward ramp.
Ginés recalled that on Wednesday afternoon he prepared to put his car next to the garage door for fear that it, warped by the pressure of the water and hail, would burst, flooding the premises. When he got ready to burn the last cartridge to save his vehicle, the storm stopped, although the metal closing shutter has been deformed by the thrust of the torrent.
another neighbor, mario aparicio miguel He recalled, still impressed, that “the storm was seen with a lot of uncertainty since it started, because it was not known how far it was going to go”. “It was getting better and better,” he said. We couldn’t raise the blinds because if we did, the windows would break. We have lived through it with great fear.” He added that the crops in his garden were unrecognizable after the storm passed.
“The little that I had protected in my garden was saved in a bad way, but everything that was cultivated in the open has been completely lost”
Salvador Miralles, The owner of a car that endured the hailstorm outdoors, has indicated that the storm “completely destroyed” the glass and sheet metal of the vehicle and could not “do anything” to avoid it. “The situation was experienced with fright and with a lot of impotence,” he said. “This amount of hail that has fallen is not normal. The little that I had protected in my orchard was saved in a bad way, but everything that was cultivated in the open has been lost completely”.
A trial of cristina cañete, what happened last Wednesday had never been experienced “in Andorra” and it all happened “in 20 minutes”. “We did not know how to stop the water, which did not stop entering the store. At least, all the damage has been material and nothing personal,” he consoled himself.