A Family That Survived The Floods - A Madeiran Remembrance

View PDF | Print View
by: biadefreitas
Total views: 4
Word Count: 863
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 Time: 3:27 AM
0 comments

Madeira is often called the Floating Garden because of the lush vegetation that smoothers this mid-Atlantic Island. Unfortunately, the 5 local bus operators can also make it a confusing island to travel. Firstly, to avoid delay, book yourself a Madeira Airport Transfers to transport you to your chosen hotel. Next, when you are contemplating what to visit and, more importantly, how to get there, hire transport from an established Madeira Taxi company. Having dispensed with the essentials you may be surprised to learn that Madeira has a tragic recent past.

Anybody who visits the capital city of Madeira, Funchal, today may find it hard to understand that it was only in February 2010 that the unpredictability of nature struck with force. Our normally dependable city was beholden to life threatening floods and accompanying mudslides. It was an incident that few who live here will forget.

February 20th 2010 was a day I, and anybody else related to Madeira, will never forget.

The newspapers of the world and television news stories encapsulated the headlines of the horror, but the news was so mind grabbingly extreme that it quickly dominated the media throughout the global village that is our earth.

The winter, just coming to an end, had been wet. The thin mountainous topsoil that sits above the volcanic rock was already saturated to the brim. The last few hours of heavy rain that fell on that Saturday in late February was the final deciding onslaught. Widespread flooding became unavoidable.

Funchal being the capital and most densely occupied, of course, saw extensive damage. However, other areas of the island did not escape the onslaught. Monte - the ever popular tourist village that sits on the hillside above Funchal, Curral das Freiras, Ribeira Brava, Serra d' ?gua, Tab?a, Ponta do Sol, Calheta, Santa Cruz - the small coastal town just along from the International Airport and Camacha all suffered.

Suddenly, a large proportion of the villages important to the tourist industry were submerged under a life threatening sea of mud and water swept rocks.

Miraculously, my residential district was spared of any devastation and thank God 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 areas, I must say what we had to endure was of scant in the grand theme of life: no mains electric power for a few hours - we used a small portable radio to be informed of what was happening elsewhere. Once the power supply was restored we were faced with yet one more reality - the cable connection had been cut, so no TV, no phone and no Internet. As I do business through the World Wide Web, I started getting worried about any emails from our customers that I couldn't read and react to. After 2 ? stressful days everything was back to normal. By then I had about 70 unread emails, each, without fail, asking me if we were all alright, God bless them!

Downtown Funchal was left with a good few meters of a mixture of water, mud, stones, debris, remains of trees... Inevitably, this debris got into each and every crevice it could find. Shops, restaurants, shopping centers, supermarkets, parking lots, none were spared.

Authority members and volunteers came out on to the terrain and did all they could, in order to have Funchal back to normal as soon as possible. Cleaning teams, together with local business owners and any local people willing to help, worked tirelessly, 24 hours a day. I must admit they were so unbelievably quick and industrious.

Following the first essential tidying up of the debris, reconstruction work was started promptly. Every inhabitant realised the importance of tourism to our island's economy and the need to present a safe and attractive environment.

Fortuitously, the hotel region was suitably positioned to miss the deluge, but the perception that Madeira was greatly damaged, would, most certainly, keep visiting tourists away.

Currently, almost twelve months since that eventful day, there are still a few things that need to be undertaken. However, today everybody is more environmentally conscious and understands that some behaviors are storing trouble for the future and need to be avoided with vigor, like building too near to our water channel.

Thus runs the cycle of life. We experiment. We suffer. We learn from our mistakes.

So, to anybody else out there, wondering if it's still worth floating garden holiday paradise - of course it is, the island is as beautiful as ever and welcomes you with all it's heart.

All Rights Reserved. This article is copyright protected. It may only be republish if the resource box and all active links remain intact.

About the Author

Bia de Freitas was born on the island of Madeira. Subsequent to having spent many years living in South Africa, Bia and her husband returned to the island of their birth to establish Daniel Madeira Taxis. Having been a familiar local feature for more than 20 years, the company can offer economical Madeira Airport Transfers and island tours. It matters not if you are a single traveller, or a party of eight, Daniel Madeira Taxis will be pleased to fulfil your holiday transport needs.