Lisbon Chamber says it is ‘more prepared’ for bad weather

The mayor of Lisbon said this Wednesday that Tuesday’s bad weather “was worse” than last week, with twice as many cases, but assured the city was “more prepared” for the weather.

“We are more prepared and so prepared that I think we have never been so prepared in this sense, namely in preparation: “every person knows what he has to do at the right time, and the mayor orders,” Carlos said. Currcies (PSD) in statements to Lusa.

Asked about the bad weather recorded early on Tuesday morning, the mayor of Lisbon said the situation “was worse” compared to last week, 7 and 8 December.

“In terms of the number of cases, it was twice as many. [Na terça-feira] there were 600 and a lot of events, last week there were 370, so we are talking about scale, something that lasted much longer, had more impact and was more complex, ”he said.

Due to the flooding registered on Tuesday, 47 people were rescued, not all of them related to damage to houses, some were in vehicles, and others felt unwell, according to the mayor of Lisbon.

“There is no one, at the moment, who does not have a roof over their head, but obviously we are looking at question after question of how people can return to their homes, because people were not homeless, people were left with houses in a very short period of time. conditions are bad and we are monitoring and helping,” Carlos Moedas assured, saying that the answers are given by the parish councils and the city council.

To the shortcomings pointed out by opposition advisers, namely PS, PCP, BE, Livre and independents elected by the PS/Livre coalition, the Mayor of Lisbon responded that what is being done now in preparation for and response to bad weather “has never been done before.” . “.

“In Camara de Lisbon, there was no control center like we have, with all the services around the table. In no other [intempéries], and we can see what exactly was done before. But before the opposition would talk about what needed to be done, they had to watch what we did and what we did, and these are the words of both the commander of our municipal police and the firemen, it was something unique.” , said the mayor of the SDP.

Carlos Moedas highlighted the “impeccable behavior” of civil protection and Socorro adviser Angelo Pereira (PSD), who succeeded in creating a control room in which, in addition to firefighters and the municipal police, “there were all people. from all services of the chamber”, including protocol and communication services.

“There were several services, so the answers were given together, and it was something that had never been done in the past at the Lisbon Chamber. Therefore, only in this we have made a huge leap in terms of preparation and a huge leap in terms of organization,” the president of the municipality defended.

The mayor insisted that the organization that took place was “no comparison” to the intervention of previous leaders, not wanting to criticize what happened in the past because it was in a different time, in a different context.

“Right now, we have managed to create a control center, which is a crisis management center where all the services of the chamber converge at once. We had meetings very often, sometimes every hour, so that everyone knew what I should do in these moments, this is the most important thing, and it was a huge step, ”he stressed.

Intense and relentless rain on Tuesday caused more than 3,000 accidents, including floods, tree falls and cut roads, affecting mainly the areas of Lisbon, Setubal, Portalegre and Santarem.

A total of 83 people were displaced, according to the National Emergency Management and Civil Protection Administration (ANEPC), and bad weather also resulted in the closure and conditioning of roads and railroad tracks, which have been restored.

In the Lisbon area, bad weather led to traffic restrictions at the entrance to the city, and in most cases this situation has been corrected. According to the city council, in Campo Maiore, in the Portalegre district, the lower part of the village was flooded, several houses were flooded with water up to the roofs.

According to the ANEPC, there are “five active municipal emergency plans”, four in the Portalegre region and one in Santarém, with the special contingency plans for the Tagus and Douro basins remaining at yellow hazard due to flood risk. . . .