One Year On - Funchal After The Floods
One Year On - Funchal After The Floods
One Year On - Funchal After The Floods
For any first time visitor to the island Madeira Airport Transfers are essential. The 5 local bus companies can be confusing to the uninitiated and hiring a Madeira Taxi is the most sensible alternative. However, the first time visitor may not be aware of the awful recent history that has occurred on this lovely mid-Atlantic holiday island.
Looking at our capital city - Funchal - currently, you would hardly believe how horrendously hit it was by flooding and mudslides in February 2010.
February 20th 2010 was a day I, and everybody else who was present on Madeira Island at that time, will be unable to forget.
You surely heard, watched with incredulity on the news or knew by any other means, the ordeal Madeira was subjected to on that day. It had been a peculiarly wet and rough winter, the ground was saturated to the surface and another few hours of yet more torrential rain on that day, took its toll on our beautiful island.
The previous couple of months had seen wet weather that the island was unaccustomed to. The thin earth that commonly covers the mountainous volcanic rock that spawns Madeira Island was already saturated to the brim. The final few hours of downpour that fell on that Saturday in late February was the catalyst to disaster. Widespread flooding became unavoidable.
Several areas were severely affected: Funchal, Monte, Curral das Freiras, Ribeira Brava, Serra d' ?gua, Tab?a, Ponta do Sol, Calheta, Santa Cruz, Camacha.
Thankfully, my residential neighbourhood was spared of any destruction and to our eternal thanks it was a non-working Saturday morning and my relatives were all safe at home. As it all got worse from mid-morning, they could well have been in serious danger, had they left the house early in the morning, as they normally do on a working day.
Also, compared to the devastation of other villages, I must say what we had to endure was of minor importance: no mains power for a few hours - we used a small portable radio to be informed of what was going on elsewhere. Once the power supply was restored we were faced with a further reality - the cable connection had been cut, so no TV, no phone and no Internet. As I conduct the everyday running of our business through the World Wide Web, I started getting worried about any emails from our clients that I couldn't access. After 2 ? harrowing days everything returned to normal. By then I had about 70 unread messages, each, without fail, asking me if we were all safe, bless them!
The older district of Funchal was left submerged beneath a combination of water, mud, stones, debris, broken branches from trees... Inevitably, this debris got into every nook and cranny it could find. Shops, restaurants, shopping centers, supermarkets, parking lots, each was left with a task of extensively cleaning up to do.
Authority workers came out as soon as it was safe to do so and did all they could, in order to have Funchal back to some semblance of normality as soon as possible. Cleaning teams, together with shop and restaurant owners and any local people willing to help, worked tirelessly, 24 hours a day. I must admit everybody was so unbelievably quick and hard-working.
Once most debris was removed, reconstruction started immediately. For our sake, and for the sake of our island, because we couldn't risk loosing one of Madeira's main sources of income - the tourist industry. Reputations are hard to build but quick to be knocked down!
Mercifully, the hotel district escaped unscathed, but the perception that Madeira was greatly damaged, would, most certainly, keep visiting tourists away.
Now, almost twelve months since that terrible day, there are still a few things that need to be done. However, today everybody is more environmentally conscious and comprehends that some behaviors are potentially dangerous and need to be avoided at all costs, like building too near to our water channel.
Never before can a lesson so hard learnt have been so widely reported.
So, everybody reading this, wondering if it's still worth it to visit Madeira - of course it is, the island is as beautiful as ever and welcomes you with open arms.
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