São Vicente after the storm: lessons for Cape Verde and the world. Desolate images and a first-person account

Five hours of rain were enough to expose years of poor urban planning decisions. What seemed safe proved fragile. The water didn't ask permission—it came in, took everything, and left a message: it always comes back.

I write with my feet still dirty from the mud that has ingrained itself in Mindelo these days. Still with my emotions raw. Still with the smell of that first morning, when, after a night of thunder and commotion, I set foot on the ground and felt water. Water where it shouldn't have been. Water that entered without asking permission, taking what it could and what it shouldn't have.

I opened the door to the flooded room and found muddy streets, as if the city had woken up from a hangover. It was the wake of a storm that, in its haste, tore down walls, reshaped corners, and erased paths.

Just yesterday, I said goodbye to Laginha Beach with a "see you soon." Today, it was gone—or at least not as I knew it. I fell asleep to the music of this city that lives in celebration. I woke to the heavy silence of the mud.

In the early hours of August 11th, in just five hours, Tropical Storm Erin dumped 192 millimeters of rain on São Vicente—more than the annual average, which is around 127 to 141 millimeters. Mindelo, which the day before was filled with light, music, and dry pavement, was transformed into mud and debris. Streets became streams, houses became makeshift dams, and Laginha Beach disappeared, swept away by the torrent.

Lives have been lost, 14 so far, but the final toll remains unknown. Amid the brown waters and debris, anonymous people rummaged through what was left, trying to salvage food and belongings still in good condition. Amid the chaos, plastic bottles floated, small and large, but numerous, as if they were the cruelest and most enduring signature of what we call development—a portrait of consumption and waste that not even the force of water can erase.

It wasn't just the rain. It was the city's design. Houses rising where a dry river once ran. Streams that only seem dead until the day they flash back to life, reminding us who's in charge. The rush to build and the lack of urban planning create an invisible map of foretold tragedies.

An older person told me she was shocked when she returned, after years as an emigrant, and saw houses built on the dry riverbeds. "In the past, the entire valley was green, from Monte Verde to Mindelo. During the rainy season, there was water and food was produced. Now they've decided to build. They've forgotten that the riverbeds are for water and the roads are for people."

The famous Laginha Beach underwent a major change in 2013 during construction on the new northern access road to Porto Grande. It was widened by approximately 150,000 m³ of sand, increasing its length by 50 meters, from 350 to approximately 500 meters. At the same time, a 360-meter boardwalk was built, connecting it to the waterfront and enhancing the urban space. Stormwater drainage pipes were installed—but nothing could handle the rush of that early morning. The sand was returned to the sea, leaving the beach disfigured.

The first response was solidarity. People with shovels, brooms, and buckets in hand, trying to restore order to what remained—cleaning houses, sidewalks, and streets, separating what could still be saved from what was beyond repair. In the market area, I met two people who, like me, were observing the mud and the pile of debris that had become that living space. One of them, with a heavy voice, simply said: "What a catastrophe." And then added, almost in a rant: "It's the fault of those who built on the riverbanks. But it's even more the fault of those who authorized it. That's the point that seems to escape me—planning a city that respects nature, not defies it."

The clay left after the water is more than just wet earth. It's memory. It's proof. It's a warning. And, if we choose, it can also be the beginning of another story—a story in which we learn from the landscape, give back space to the rivers, and build as if we know the next flood may be closer than it seems.

This may very well be the new "normal." Just as summers above forty degrees Celsius are commonplace in Portugal, here too, climate change has gone from being a distant warning to becoming a daily reality—no matter how much some insist on downplaying it. On the streets, phrases spoken with astonishment and dismay can be heard: "In all my years, I've never seen anything like this in São Vicente."

But while the memory of the flood is still fresh, progress—or what's marketed as such—lurks in the form of promises of growth and low-cost flights packed with tourists. Tourists who arrive expecting to find everything perfect: clean, comfortable, predictable. They want the same shops, the same flavors, the same habits they have at home. The same model that, little by little, corrodes Barcelona, Venice, and Lisbon, driving out residents and eroding the soul of the cities. Here, those who know São Vicente fear that this path could erase what makes it unique—even before the water can.

And perhaps this is the choice that awaits Saint Vincent: repeat the mistake of building against nature or learn, once and for all, that resistance begins with respect.

Note: while writing this column I was without electricity 3 times.