The flooding in the Algarve after the torrential rain last weekend affected Loulé, Portimão, Olhão, and Silves but most dramatically, Albufeira whose residents today started a massive clean-up operation in the face of official dithering.
Assessors have started to list the damage to the municipal infrastructure and insurance company representatives attended businesses where water damage has ruined stock, fittings and structures.
The Minister of Internal Administration, João Calvão da Silva, visited Albufeira yesterday and concerningly has yet to decide whether to issue an official disaster categorisation for downtown Albufeira which will enable the release of emergency funds to help get the city back on its feet.
Destroyed roads, partially buried cars, displaced paving, flooded premises, debris, mud and rubble seem insufficient for the government to give the go-ahead for emergency status for Albufeira, the sub-text being that central funds will not be needed if the minister decides that the damage is not sufficient.
Paulo Lemos, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said that the government is working with the local authority in developing a flood prevention plan and Albufeira 'is likely to be classified as a flood risk zone' - as if more proof was needed.
"Right now, given everything that has happened in recent days, Albufeira will be considered as a flood risk zone," said Lemos with rare insight after a meeting with the mayor and the president of the Portuguese Environment Agency, among others.
Many downtown Albufeira businesses are not insured due to high flood risk premiums, the insurers being well aware that flooding in Albufeira is a probability.
According to Lemos, the classification of Albufeira as a 'critical flood risk area' involves "the execution of works and the implementation of early warning systems," and he implied "the possibly relocation of some establishments which are in areas of risk."
The 'relocation of some establishements' comment is a typical Lemos response; to remove any real estate liable to flooding rather than control the rainfall through effective storm drainage.
The Portuguese Environment Agency earlier this year published a list of 22 areas considered at risk of flooding, but Albufeira was not included despite severe flooding in the past, notably in 2008, and the geography of the area leading to an inevitable flood situation after sustained heavy rainfall and inadequate storm drainage.
According to Paulo Lemos, the classification of sites at risk of flooding is done according to 'certain criteria' and when this last list was devised, "Albufeira did not meet the criteria in the directive, (even) taking into account its history of flooding." Locals would argue that the criteria definitions need changing.
Lemos added that all the data points to Sunday’s event being a “centennial flood,” i.e. one that happens once every 100 years, and whose occurrence would be almost impossible to avoid. This attempt to downplay a situation caused by official indifference and incompetence will not endear him to locals and already has been viewed as another in a long line of supercilious comments made during his tenure in a job in which he has failed to shine.
Lemos stressed that certain work to control the streams and gullies that feed water into the downtown area during heavy rainfall will be looked at by the Ministry of the Environment and the council who will then develop a project to apply to the Portuguese Water Resources Fund.
The unhelpful responses by Lemos is true to form; delays, reports, classifications, paperwork, meetings and zero action and does not explain why this work was not properly done by the council when spending millions recently on subterranean and surface infrastructure.
Nobody from government seems able to make a decision on declaring the area an official disaster zone while the Association of Hotels, Restaurants of Portugal (AHRESP) in a statement today said it was "sympathetic to the Algarve entrepreneurs who have suffered serious losses in their establishments, caused by the bad weather on Sunday," while at the same time pressing the government to declare Albufeira a disaster zone because “only then our member companies will have access to the necessary funding to replace destroyed facilities and equipment."
At the same time, AHRESP is working with Turismo de Portugal to hold a meeting with all affected business owners to arrange credit lines that can be used to restart their businesses.
Today's summary is that the new Minister has left town, the comments from the Secretary of State are less than helpful, locals business owners continue to clear and repair their shops and bars, and the council continues to remove tonnes of rubble, debris and mud.
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