If you’ve lived in Jávea long enough, you already know the routine. The sky darkens, the first heavy drops smack the terrace, and within an hour the same predictable streets have turned into brown, fast-moving rivers. It isn’t bad luck and it isn’t random. The town’s layout, its riverbed, its drainage system and the last forty years of development all play a part.
Here’s the reality most people only learn after a few storms.
The Gorgos river is a dry riverbed… until it isn’t
The Gorgos cuts through the centre of Jávea and most of the year it looks like a dusty, rocky walking path with reeds and a few dog walkers. But it drains a huge catchment running up toward Jesús Pobre and the inland hills. When inland storms dump water like we know they do, the river suddenly comes alive. The water doesn’t slowly build. It arrives in a single long surge, usually earlier and stronger than people expect.
This is why any street aligned toward the riverbed becomes a temporary channel. Not because the river overflows first, but because the water between town and Montgó looks for the fastest route downhill.
Why Avenida del Pla and parts of the Arenal area struggle
These areas used to be marshland. If you look at old maps, everything between the Arenal and the port was a mixture of sandy flats, marsh and oranges. When the area was developed, the drainage system wasn’t designed for cloudburst-style storms. The water has two options: soak into the sandy soil or run toward the lowest point. In heavy rain, it always chooses the second.
That’s why Avenida del Pla and the adjoining side streets fill fast. It isn’t a failure. It’s geometry. We remember about a decade ago, we arrived at the Arenal, the rain started and we sheltered in the old Bora Bora karaoke bar run by Fernando and within 2 hours, we were being rescued by the Guardia in a dinghy. It really happens that fast.
Montgó runoff behaves differently
Water falling on Montgó doesn’t hang around. The mountain is a slab. Anything that hits it drains down the gullies at speed. When the storm angle is right, all that runoff hits the town edge in minutes. The streets closest to the mountain get a shock of sideways water that the drains simply can’t swallow quickly enough. It’s not unusual to see a completely dry street turn into a knee-high flow in half an hour.
People who live on the mid-slopes know you clear your drains before autumn, not after the first storm.
The drainage system has layers from different eras
Some drains under the Old Town date from the late 1960s. Parts of the Arenal system were upgraded in the early 2000s. Other parts are still a patchwork of different pipe widths, manholes and outflow points that don’t communicate well with each other. When the rain is normal, you don’t notice it. When the rain is sudden and intense, the system fights itself. And doesn’t always win.
This is why one street floods while the street behind it stays oddly dry.
The outflows toward the sea are limited
Jávea has a finite number of outlets where stormwater can escape toward the sea. When the beach level rises during storms or when waves push in, those outflows slow or back up. The water then has nowhere to go except sideways into the streets until the pressure equalises.
Arenal feels this more than any other zone because the beach curve traps water. You can literally see the surf pushing against the drains if you know where to look.
The incline from Old Town to the port creates fast channels
Walk from the Old Town down toward the port and you’ll notice the slope. It’s subtle, but during storms that slope becomes a straight-line path. Streets like Avenida de Alicante and the side lanes running toward the port act as natural funnels. Once the water starts moving, it keeps its speed because the incline never completely flattens until the marina level.
Storm behaviour follows the same pattern every time
Ask anyone who has been through the big storms. The 2007 flood, the 2014 Gota Fría, the 2019 DANA. The details change, but the pattern repeats:
- Rain hits inland first.
- The Gorgos surge arrives 20 to 40 minutes later.
- Streets parallel to the river go first.
- The Arenal zone fills from the centre outward towards the Avenida del Pla.
- Outflows to the sea slow just when volume is highest.
- Everything drains quickly once the inland burst stops.
People often think Jávea floods because it is “low-lying”. That’s only partly true. The real issue is that the town sits between a mountain that sheds water really quickly, a riverbed that switches from dry to very dangerous within minutes, and a coastline that traps stormwater when the sea is rough.
Why this matters to residents
You avoid certain streets only during storms.
You learn which drains outside your house need clearing.
You know how fast the river rises just by judging the colour of the sky over Jesús Pobre.
You know not to park near the reeds if a heavy storm is forecast.
You learn the difference between normal rain and the inland “wall of water” that arrives later.
None of this is usually dramatic in daily life. Ninety-nine percent of the time things work as they should. But there have been (and will be) occasions when the (well planned) systems just cannot cope!
