How Cabo Verdeans Are Leaning on Each Other After Devastating Flash Floods

A whopping 192.3 millimeters (7.6 inches) of rain fell in that short interval, far above the annual average for São Vicente over the past three decades. The Cabo Verdean government stated that the weather conditions were uncommon and that the country did not have adequate equipment to forecast how heavy the rains would be, leaving citizens without a warning when the rains came. About 1,500 people were forcefully removed from their homes.

“Hurricanes usually start in our waters, and we’ll experience some rainfall, but it's rainfall we're kind of used to,” Giovani Dos Reis tells OkayAfrica. Based in Mindelo, a port city in São Vicente, Dos Reis is a private chef who’s now employing his culinary skills in making meals for people affected by the floods. He is also crowdfunding to support relief efforts through Golden Hours Crew, a party-organizing outfit that has now turned into an emergency volunteer group.

“We only get rain here like once a year — twice a year at max,” Dos Reis says. “It usually rains for like a week straight, but you are kind of able to know when are the rainy days and when aren’t. This time, we didn’t even receive any kind of warning.”

According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, an average of one to two hurricanes a year are classified as Cape Verde storms due to the West African group of islands being the originating point for these storms. Usually, the cluster of thunderstorms moves off the continent and into the Atlantic, often dying out when they hit the ocean. On rare occasions, they travel to other continents, with less than one in ten storms crashing into the U.S.

Currently, multiple Dutch islands, including Saba, Sint-Eustatius, and Sint-Maarten, as well as Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands, are bracing for impact as Tropical Storm Erin reaches a Category 3 hurricane. The U.K. is also preparing for “an increasing possibility of stronger winds and rain, some of which could be heavy and thundery,” as Erin progresses deep into the North Atlantic.

Dos Reis shares that this is the first time he’s seen a flash flood of this magnitude in Cabo Verde, adding that the lack of preparedness played a role in the severity of the damage. “There’s some roundabouts and parts of areas that are completely destroyed. I’m talking like streets split in half, where you can’t even get into certain communities,” he says, adding that the main city market was largely destroyed, and some houses were filled to the brim with mud.

Online, there are pictures and videos showing a glimpse of the devastation, with water carrying cars and tearing through structures.

For the most part, the aftermath of the devastating floods is citizens leaning on each other, assistance from international bodies like the Red Cross and Global Giving, as well as direct aid and crowdfunding efforts from the Cabo Verdean diaspora. (There are more Cabo Verdeans in the diaspora than on the islands themselves.)

The government declared a state of emergency on the affected islands to “activate the National Emergency Fund” to assist those affected, but Dos Reis shared that there have been some problems regarding “not having enough space for everyone or not having enough food and water for everyone.”

With the government’s efforts failing to fully meet the needs of the people, Dos Reis says that it’s “basically citizens leaning on each other and figuring things out,” from pooling resources to even popular artists getting on the ground and digging mud out of houses with shovels. In addition to cooking and serving meals, Dos Reis’ Golden Hours Crew has bought mattresses and pillows for some of those displaced, with plans for more direct impact from personal contributions and sourced donations.

“[Recent events] have me proud of my people, just seeing all of us come together,” Dos Reis says. “It’s a bunch of people that don’t usually do this on an everyday basis, and this is not something we’re used to but we’ve been able to step up, and I feel like if it wasn’t for all of us and the organizations that have taken the initiative, it would be way worse than what it is now.”