When the disastrous flood, generally referred to as “la Inundación”,occurred in Santa Fe City in 2003, it seemed like a bolt from the blue. Yet, it was far from the first flood to strike the city. Situated between two major rivers, flooding is part of the city’s history since its foundation. The lack of preparedness raises questions about the relation between past experience and future action in matters of disaster management. This article analyses the processes of remembering and forgetting as mediators of this relation. By focusing ethnographically on how these entwined processes playout within the Santa fesinian bureaucracy, following a logic of omission, it is argued that this logic contribute to the normalization of disaster instead of future prevention.