"A night of panic and terror," recounts a tourist whose house was flooded in the São Sebastião tragedy.
Seamstress Fernanda Anacleto and her group of 19 family members and friends, including a six-month-old baby, were stranded for hours in Boiçucanga until they were rescued by neighbors.
By Camila França and Guilherme Paladino, 247 - One week after the tragedy on the northern coast of São Paulo state, which has caused 54 deaths so farnew stories of people affected by the rains are beginning to emerge. Seamstress Fernanda Anacleto is one of the survivors of the flood in the Boiçucanga beach area, in São Sebastião, where she reports having experienced "moments of panic and terror" in the early hours of Sunday (19).
Originally from Birigui, in the interior of São Paulo, Fernanda had rented a house on the coast with family and friends to spend the Carnival holiday. The group of 20 people (16 adults, three children and a six-month-old baby) left on Friday night (17) towards Boiçucanga beach, where they were able to enjoy themselves during Saturday morning (18) without imagining what would happen in the next few hours.
It was during the early hours of Sunday morning that the group's outing took a turn: "on Saturday night into Sunday morning, we woke up to find the house already flooding," the seamstress recounted in an interview with... Brazil 247"We experienced moments of panic, of terror, it was very scary because we didn't know what was happening."
"We didn't know what was happening, the water started rising very quickly, it even reached our knees, and it was terrifying because we had 16 adults with four children, one of whom was a six-month-old baby. There was no way to run to the front of the house, I left the house because the current was very strong, it was very tense." Check out images in the video below:
The seamstress said that, initially, the group believed it was just flooding of the pool next to the house, due to the heavy rains. It didn't occur to any of those present that the flooding would take on much larger proportions in the region. "Later, we realized it was the river behind the house that flooded it," she recounted.
"The cars were all flooded, the whole house was covered in mud and water, our clothes got soaked, our cell phones died because we had to use the flashlight during the night... the next day, when we tried to use our cell phones, the network wasn't completing calls anymore, and the water level was limited to what was in the tank and what we had bought. It was a very complicated situation," the tourist reported.
In such a desperate situation, the group relied on the solidarity of other tourists who were staying in a neighboring house, on higher ground that was not affected by the floods, to spend the following days. "This other group was in a house nearby and opened it to accommodate us. There were a total of 34 of us in one house, and it was thanks to this solidarity that we were able to get through those four days together. We are all well, we managed to get through that situation, but solidarity was what helped us the most at that moment."
The group was welcomed from Sunday morning until Wednesday (22) by supportive neighbors, who shared not only the house, but also the water and food they had available throughout the period.
The seamstress also revealed that, in the only contact her group had managed to make with the firefighters, nothing could be done: "We called the fire department twice: the first time we waited, and the second time they warned us that we were stranded so there was no way they could reach us immediately."
"I don't know what would have happened to us if the other group of tourists hadn't been so kind as to open their home and take us in. We would have seen all of that happening (the flooding), without anywhere to stay, without water, food, and with our cell phones malfunctioning," he added.