Totally agree with your comments.
On the Spanish news they were interviewing some of the market traders, who had lost nearly everything, and they were saying that they've had worse rain that this and it's never caused this level of devastation.
But like you say, filling in a dry river bed was always going to lead to some sort of problem somewhere along the line. And here when it rains it more like monsoon weather than just rain.
I felt very sorry to hear about the British pensioners, it sounded like they had no chance.
Justin