Albufeira flood November 2015

The place looks great. I would never of believed when I left on 3rd of November I would be flying out on boxing day to the place looking so good

Heavy rain back. Fast flowing water coming down the MFA. Hope it doesn't last.

It certainly rained quite hard last night for a couple of hours but there were no signs of any flooding when walked through town around 11pm.

Local buses, tour and hotel buses also taxis are now using the Avenida de Liberdade stopping place once again.

Glad to report that all escalators seem to be working now on a regular basis. Gremlins sorted.

Just back from Albufeira , and we would like to congradulate all those who pulled together to get the old town back on its feet, we were amazed at how quick they have replaced the damage , yes there is more work to be carried out , but we had our usual walks and bar visits as per usual , no bother

Just followed JJ's link and read that article!
It is appalling, three months on, over a quarter of a year later, and not a penny in help from acknowledged Government funds for such an eventuallity has been received, incredulous.

This is no doubt the usual stifling bureaucracy, where everyone is terrified of making a decision for fear of losing face if it turns out be wrong. Form a committee. Drag it out.

As any other former and possibly current civil servants in the UK will attest, any officials chief preoccupation is the avoidance of error. This rules out almost any form of decision making, except at the very highest level.

I do though wonder if some people deliberately do not pay flood insurance etc in the hope or expectation that government (ie the taxpayer) will bail them out in such situations?

The big metal gates at the roundabout were supposed to hold back the water but they burst open under the pressure. And of course the backed up water had already flooded the Pingo Doce supermarket, threatened the health centre and partly flooded Albufeira Camping. The tunnel under the town was repaired a few years ago after the 2007 flood, but  the deluge on 1st November mainly came along the surface.

It's possibly a good thing that the flood doors did burst. If the water had reached the top of the embankment and overflowed, it's possible that many more thousands of tons of debris would have been washed into the town and of course the road across town could have been destroyed. That would have screwed things royally on several fronts

Like many parts of the UK, people here are having to learn how to deal with events that were once rare, but now becoming more common and more extreme.