The life of a Board President in Leiria with 200 calls a day and little rest

The last three weeks of the life of a president of a Leiria Council were made up of 200 calls a day, a few hours of rest spent sleeping in a pavilion and the feeling that discouragement was increasing.

The president of the Souto da Carpalhosa Parish Council, Sandro Ferreirafeels that she has only just begun to breathe, after the passing of Kristin’s depression, which left countless houses destroyed in her parish and which is still struggling with around 15 to 20% of homes without electricity.

“Normally, the calls start at 7 in the morning and today they only started at eight”, the mayor told the Lusa agency, who even attended 200 calls in a dayto respond to the various requests for help he received from his customers.

It was only in the last two days that he managed go home and sleep there. “Until two days ago, I stayed in the pavilion or stayed at someone’s house who had electricity or water, which I also only had electricity for two days”, he says.

The district and municipality of Leiria were among the most affected in Portugal for the Kristin depressionat the end of January, with scenarios of great destructionsevere damage to homes, infrastructure, terraces and restaurants. The district still faces serious power failureswhich affected tens of thousands of people.

In the first 15 days after the storm passed, the mayor of that rural parish in the municipality of Leiria had nights when I didn’t sleep and others where they only rested their eyes for “an hour or two. But it was never sleep, sleep, because we were always worried, on alert”, he says.

It wasn’t the only one. The Council’s dozen or so employees worked “from morning to night every day, without Saturdays or Sundays. I can only thank them, because they are always with us“, it says.

Now, Sandro Ferreira fear for what may be to come. “My problem is that in a month I will realize where will our heads be. We don’t know, because, for us who lived through it 24 hours a day, it was… I won’t say it was a massacre, but it was… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s very difficult,” he says.

In people, mainly because of the lack of lightthe president of the Board notes tiredness and exhaustion. “After 20 or 22 days, people are already complaining about everything and nothing, and with good reason, therefore. Nowadays it is not acceptedand, but who cares? It always depends on us, who are from the Board and are the link with the people”.

On the ground, Sandro Ferreira believes that people “they are running out of patience none”, they begin to “lose track of things” and treat and speak badly to council employees. “My fear is that it will get even worse”.

In the parish of Regueira de Pontes, the priest João Pereira Feliciano he also fears the impact on people’s mental health. “What I fear now is depressionbecause people have gone into depression and are now a bit helpless, having difficulty looking to the future”.

If people felt “completely disoriented” in the initial clash, today there is distrust of support and about the possibility of building a future.

“At this moment, it is helplessness, it is the difficulty in rebuilding. They no longer have that desire to get back on their feet because they are depressed. People, at this moment, don’t even have the capacity to think where do they have the land records? or things like that”, says the priest.

Three weeks ago in a pavilion

In the Souto da Carpalhosa pavilion, in Leiria, there were 26 evicted because of Kristin depression. This Thursday, there were still 12 people, including Filomena and Vitor, I’ve been waiting for better days for almost three weeks.

In a part of the pavilion protected by black tarps, Filomena and her mother-in-law are sitting around a table and an oil heater. Next door, there are dominoes, cards, books and a television where you can watch some DVD movies to pass the time.

In one of the corners are the mattresses where 12 people continue to sleep passed more than tthree weeks after the depressiono, in a space where there is still a long table for meals.

On January 28th, Filomena Caesar remembers waking up in his house in Moita da Roda with “a terrible wind, which took roof tiles for everything that was local.”

Without sleeping a wink, in the morning, he saw “the misery” caused by the wind, the 71-year-old woman tells the Lusa agency, who also had to help her sister-in-law’s family, who lived nearby and who also “was left without a home”.

Of the 12 who are in the pavilion, eight are from your family. The eight stayed at home, with buckets catching the falling water, until civil protection identified them and took them to the sports gym in Souto da Carpalhosa, a parish in the rural area of ​​Leiria.

“Now, We are waiting for you to help us tidy up the house”, he says. In the house, it rains in the bathroompart of the roof flew off and was replaced by some sheets, Filomena and her partner Vítor’s room is black with humidity and, in her mother-in-law’s room, there is a large crack that has opened up in the ceiling.

“UA person looks here and does what? Nothing. Have you seen how it is?” he asks. Victor GinjaFilomena’s companion, as he looks at the house and comments: “Sometimes, you just want to run away.”

Filomena tries, for now, keep the spirit up: “He gets very discouraged, but we have to move forward.”

The 12 people should exchange the pavilion for three prefabricated houses which were installed alongside. That alone gives some hope to Filomena, who now hopes to be with her two dogs: Bianca, a plump chihuahua, and Matias, a brown pinscher. “You miss me a little, my girl”, he says, while seeing Bianca again in the house she had to leave.

Despite the situation, is grateful for all the help that the family has received: “Everything went well, thank God we can’t complain. I can’t complain. NI don’t complain because the Board has done a lota lot for us. We just have to thank the president of the Board.”

Regarding life in the pavilion, Filomena admits that it seemed “like a circus – some were noisy, others less so, some got angry, but it freaked out. It looked like Big Brother”, adds her mother-in-law Isabela Domingues, who tries to ward off the sadness, “which doesn’t cure anything”.

“All it takes is the good will of those who are helping usthat we have to face the rest and we have to have faith that it will be better tomorrow. And we continue to maintain this hope”, adds Filomena, believing that everything will pass, despite, at this moment, being there are few certainties about the future from your home.