05/23/2024 – 22:40
After several days without rain, the city of Porto Alegre had a day of prolonged and intense precipitation throughout this Thursday (23). Because of this, streets and avenues were flooded and, in some neighborhoods, especially in the center-south and south of the capital, which had already dried out after the floods at the beginning of the month, they returned to water. get flooded and people had to be removed from their homes.
Dental surgeon Brígido Ribas, resident of the Cavalhada neighborhood, in the south of the capital, saw his house being invaded by the arroio (stream) that gives the neighborhood its name. The last time was precisely on May 1st, right at the beginning of the devastating cycle of floods in the city. He had to climb the furniture and open the doors for the water to pass through.
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“Now it’s raining again, it seems a little worse than last time, because there are waves behind the house, I saw through the glass of the door that there are waves from the stream into my house, onto my house. So, I left the gate and the door of the house completely open, because the water is running inside. What I could get out of my things, I got up. Let’s see if they can survive this time. From the last one, I managed to save most of the furniture and appliances”, he told Brazil Agency.
Ribas and his wife were forced to leave the house and go to sleep next door. According to him, this is the fourth time in four years that the waters of the stream, which passes behind his house, have overflowed into the property. He has lived there since 2011, but the disorder only started in 2020.
“I’ve run out of patience to stay in this house. We have to go to an apartment, it’s not possible. The house is good, there are fruit trees in the backyard, but we can’t keep repeating this type of situation, because it starts to rain and we can’t sleep anymore,” he said.
A few streets away, Guiomar Meireles saw the water in the Cavalhada stream rise by more than half a meter. It wasn’t the first time, but now she was able to take her seven dogs.
“I [já] I had 75 centimeters of water inside the house, but I never got out because I called, the Civil Defense and the firefighters wanted to rescue me, just me, and my dogs didn’t. And I said: ‘No one here lets go of anyone’. This time, I asked for help and was heard. I’m here on the street with my dogs, waiting for a shelter,” she reported, while taking care of the animals, accompanied by men from the Metropolitan Civil Guard.
In the same neighborhood, it was possible to see Army armored vehicles, including an amphibious vehicle, circulating along roads already covered by water and offering assistance to residents to exit.
Trash on the streets and bomb houses
According to the capital’s Municipal Department of Water and Sewage (Dmae), in areas where there is no drainage station, rain flows by gravity into streams. “As the level of these streams is high, rainwater has nowhere to go. Therefore, they end up returning through the storm drains,” the agency said in posts on social media.
O rubble accumulated in the streets and in drains and the partial operation of pumping houses, as in the Menino Deus neighborhood, also contributed to the flooding. The water level rose quickly and even affected neighborhoods that had not been affected until then. In the historic center of the city, the Public Market, which was undergoing cleaning, dismissed employees as a precaution. The water flooded the surrounding area, but did not really invade the area again.
At a press conference, the mayor of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Sebastião Melo, said that the municipal management knew that there was the possibility of more heavy rain and was not caught out.
>> See complete coverage of tragedy in RS
“This rain was very concentrated during the morning, especially in Belém Novo. The news that Inmet brings me [Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia] is that only in the southern region [de Porto Alegre] it rained 100 millimeters. So, what was a problem with the flooded areas spread practically to the entire city with this rain and then, we have serious problems, in addition to the flooded areas”, he stated.
Melo also announced the suspension of classes in Porto Alegre and the closing of the Guaíba floodgates, because the water stopped flowing and re-entered the city. Some schools may operate as temporary shelters while they are closed to students.
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