Residents of Barra do Sahy, one of the neighborhoods of São Sebastião most affected by the storms on the north coast of São Paulo, told Agência Brasil that they had not received any type of alert for the risk of landslides due to the strong storms in the region last weekend. The National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts (Cemaden) reported that it had predicted the storms three days in advance and warned the National Civil Defense and local civil defense departments. “We in the community were really alert: ‘run, the hill is going down’”, says Wagner de Oliveira, a resident of the neighborhood who helped rescue victims. In a press conference last Monday (20), the mayor of São Sebastião, Felipe Augusto, said that the municipal administration issued alerts from 9 pm on Saturday (18), when the rains began in the city. However, the prefecture did not issue a prior warning about the rains in the early hours of Sunday. The first alert was posted on the city hall’s Twitter account at 7 am on Sunday, after a storm. Agência Brasil questioned the city hall about how the alerts were issued and is awaiting a response. Eviction Since this morning (22), residents of the village have been leaving their homes to take shelter with relatives and schools. A court decision, at the request of the state government and the city hall, authorized the removal of all people living in risk areas in the municipality. The cleaning lady Valdineia Gonçalves agreed to leave the house where she lives and take shelter in a school. A resident of the neighborhood for two years, she is thinking of returning to Bahia, her homeland, after the moments of terror experienced in recent days. “I woke up to the noise. The neighbors knocking on my door. Then, I picked up the children, who were sleeping. We went to the track, trying to call for help with the mud here [faz o gesto na altura do peito]”, remember. She says that, even with every moment of despair, she kept the family together. “She passed almost everyone swimming. Me holding my daughter on one side and my son on the other”, Agenilson de Jesus, who is a countryman from Valdineia, says that he is also thinking about returning to the Northeast after having lost his house and documents in the tragedy. “I was sleeping and woke up with a bunch of people screaming, desperate. Then, I took the cell phone, because there was no power at home, to turn on the flashlight. When I opened the gate, there was already that pile of mud, the car going down”. To save himself, he climbed on the roof of the property and jumped when he felt that everything was coming down. “I had to jump, the house started collapsing.” Despite the risk of staying there, Wagner de Oliveira says he will not leave the house where he lives with his mother, father and seven siblings. “The house took many years to conquer. It wasn’t overnight. You can’t just leave for the sake of leaving.”
Agência Brasil
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