“What happened was a waterspout. It rained 150 millimeters [ou 150 litros por metro quadrado] for about half an hour and, in the lower area of Brinches, there were floods”, explained the president of the Municipality of Serpa, João Efigénio Palma, to the Lusa agency.
According to the mayor, “no one was expecting” this “meteorological phenomenon located in Brinches”, because what was predicted “was thunderstorms and rain, but nothing with this volume”.
“A very large amount of water fell. Just as a comparison, when we get 20 or 30 millimeters of rain we already find a lot”, he said.
Contacted today by Lusa, the Sub-Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Command of Baixo Alentejo indicated that, “from 18:00” on Friday, it received the first warnings of flooding in Brinches, in houses and public roads.
“We have recorded 10 floods and a structure collapse in the municipality of Serpa”, he explained.
The mayor of Serpa said that the flooding occurred “on a lower street”, with water entering through the backyards “of around 20 homes”.
“There are houses that have their furniture and appliances destroyed, because the water reached too high. In some it reached perhaps one meter high”, he specified.
The houses do not present problems in structural terms, but “there are walls knocked down in the backyards”, added João Efigénio Palma.
Firefighters and council services are today carrying out cleaning work in the affected streets and houses and an assessment of the damage and the needs of the population is underway.
“Social services are preparing clothes, because, as some people have left their furniture and clothes wet and damaged, they will need this support. But there are not exactly homeless people, the houses are being cleaned and remain in habitable conditions”, he stressed.
Source from the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), in statements to Lusa, specified that this body does not have any official station in that area of Alentejo, to measure the amount of rain that fell.
But, according to data indicated on the radar, the estimated amount of rain in the area “was 80 millimeters in three hours, between 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm”, said the source.
“It’s an estimate, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have rained more. But even this value is already quite high, because, just as a point of comparison, a red warning is issued from 60 millimeters in six hours”, he assured.
Already sub-regional commander of Emergency and Civil Protection for Baixo Alentejo, Carlos Pica, also told Lusa that Brinches was “the epicenter of a localized extreme meteorological phenomenon”.
“In the space of half an hour, 140 to 150 millimeters of rain fell, an amount of rainfall that caused flooding and caused the locality to be affected by water runoff,” he said.
In addition to the floods, Civil Protection has official knowledge of “the collapse of a wall that affected two cars and a vehicle without occupants swept away by the flood”.
This “kind of waterspout” also meant that “several national and municipal roads, which connect to Brinches, had to be temporarily closed”, for the safety of drivers, during the rain, and because “inert materials, such as earth and stones, were dragged onto the roads”, which were then cleaned and reopened.
