PS: Lisbon Drainage Plan will help, but “it is not guaranteed” end of floods | Lisbon
The PS will soon present, in a city council meeting, a proposal for the Lisbon City Council to “reassess the maintenance plans for the main infrastructures and collectors” and “possible adaptation of human means of combat” to floods in the capital.
According to a statement from the socialist councillors, the proposal for the Lisbon City Council (CML) to reassess the maintenance plans for the main infrastructures and collectors foresees the participation of the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC), at a time when the current the climate reality affects “the whole city” of Lisbon and “not just the riverside area”.
The PS recognizes that the Drainage Plan will adapt the city of Lisbon in a more structural way to the climate changes experienced, but warns that, in itself, this “does not guarantee that floods will not occur in extreme events”, so Lisbon “must also prepare itself in terms of its ability to response of road tunnel pumping switches and maintenance and preparation of the city’s main infrastructure”.
“Now is the time to repair compensation. In this sense, considering that the CML had been waiting for more than two months for a plan of measures to combat the social effects of the stay, including 12 million euros to support traders, and not a single cent reached people and companies, it is important that the CML execute what it promises”, say the socialist councillors.
To this end – they claim – at one of the two city council meetings next week (12 and 14 December), the mayor, Carlos Moedas (PSD), “must bring an emergency support plan for immediate support to people and traders who controlled severe damage materials during floods”.
They recall, by the way, that the mixture that fell on the night of Wednesday to Thursday over the Greater Lisbon area recorded in a few hours almost a third of the average values of rainfall for the month of December, in an “abnormal phenomenon but whose frequency, comment of climatic aggravation, will be more and more recurrent”.
Meanwhile, also in a statement, the PAN came to express, following the floods, its “solidarity” with all the people affected by this “extreme phenomenon”, thanking all the professionals involved in rescue operations and who are still working for the city to return to “normality”. The party also conveyed its condolences to the family of the woman who died in Algés🇧🇷
“If doubts persist in relation to climate change, this was, unfortunately, yet another proof that we are prepared for this type of extreme events, which will be increasingly recurrent and intense. The Drainage Plan cannot be the only solution, a holistic plan is needed for the problem. The new construction should not make the soil even more impermeable, it is necessary to create more green spaces, support constructive solutions with systems for capturing and using rainwater”, defended the PAN, through the voice of the municipal deputy António Morgado Valente.