Last week, the front page of the French newspaper Le Monde dedicated a large amount of space to the threat of drought looming over Barcelona. The article was illustrated with a photo of the dying grass of the Real Club de Polo de la Diagonal. Days before, British media explained in detail the restrictions that hotels on the coast will have and warned that the pools could be empty this summer. The drought in Catalonia has crossed borders and now the world is looking at us, especially that part that plans to come on vacation and contribute with their visit to 12% of our wealth.

This international repercussion has set off all the alarms in the tourism sector, which sees its survival in danger while contemplating with concern the Government’s plan to alleviate the drought because the proposed solutions are either long-term or simply rejected. Added to the refusal to connect the Ebro network with Barcelona on an exceptional basis is the two or three year deadlines for the new desalination plants or the scandalous lack of electricity supply for the expansion of one of them (Blanes).

On the other hand, the idea of ??bringing tanker ships is insufficient because we are talking about two ships a day when only the city of Barcelona would need a dozen a day. Without forgetting that this solution is economically unsustainable because each trip of these ships can cost 380,000 euros. And finally, the rain forecasts are very pessimistic.

This distressing scenario has activated a phase of the drought that was not officially contemplated. This is the SQP (every man for himself) phase and its first effects are visible in Catalonia. The most eloquent example is found in Lloret de Mar where hoteliers and campsites will invest one and a half million euros to buy a desalination plant with which they will fill their swimming pools and send the surplus to the public network to supply the entire population.

In other parts of the coast, hoteliers are considering buying water and bringing it in vats from France, even if it is at the cost of risking the fine from the Generalitat. And they even study opening wells and extracting water, as many farmers do. Several industries are already applying, without explaining it, reuse plans and in Sabadell, for example, they will increase the production of regenerated water.

The SQP operation is underway and everyone is looking for a lifeline to survive the shipwreck. The problem is that some will be able to overcome the situation more than others because they will have money or because nature has placed them in hydraulically rich places. There will also be sectors that will have to hibernate and others will be very affected, such as gardening.

So the Generalitat must be more understanding than repressive and facilitate feasible solutions instead of prohibiting them or making them difficult with arguments that do not work in emergency cases. And, above all, it must help those who do not have a rope to hold on to so as not to drown in the drought.