ALFAFAR, Spain (Reuters) -The sound of rain still triggers panic in Jose Manuel Gonzalez, a year after he spent six hours clinging to a traffic light as floods in the Valencia region of Spain swept away everything in their path, killing more than 220 people including his brother.
Gonzalez, 58, said he often wakes up in a state of shock, unable to shake off memories of the night on that traffic light from where he watched his daughter hold on for her life to the awning of a nearby shop in the Valencia suburb of Alfafar, one of the worst-affected areas.
He feels responsible for his elderly mother, who is devastated after his brother was taken by a torrent of water as he tried to rescue a woman from a car that night.
Even just a drop of rain is “like an alarm, something that goes off in my