Editorial: Spanish tragedy hits close to home - Kilkenny Live

The horror stories coming from the Spanish region of Valencia have shocked us all in recent days, as images from the flooding disaster arrived across our newspapers, television and phone screens.

The scale of the devastation is still only becoming clear, with people still missing and the death toll continuing to climb.
Sometimes, we can feel slightly removed from natural disasters happening in other countries, but that is less likely the case with Spain — a place where many of us visit, have friends or family, and are familiar with it.

Reading the words from a Kilkenny woman, who built a life over there — only to watch so much of it be washed away in an instant — really hits home. Gabrielle Tallent, her husband, and their three young children, lost their home and car to the floods that destroyed their village of Aldaia in Valencia. As traumatic and difficult as this is, they are glad thankful to have survived; many others did not.

The scale, speed and unprecedented nature of the tragedy has been flagged as a climate change event. Experts are warning we are going to see more of these type of events —more frequent and more severe, and closer to home. We can’t be fooled into thinking they won’t affect us here. The problem is a global one, and turbulent times are ahead.

TIDY TOWNS
Well done to all our local Tidy Towns groups who have once again done Kilkenny proud in the annual competition.
Many towns and villages managed to improve their scores in this year’s table, showing that the only way to succeed is to keep innovating, improving, and moving forward. It was also great to see a number of new entrants from Kilkenny — in Piltown, Owning and Graignamanagh.

As has been noted elsewhere, the successes of these Tidy Towns groups in Kilkenny highlight the strength of community spirit and partnership, working in harmony to improve our county and the environment.