Rebuilding the Centre Region after the bad weather will be a long and possibly incomplete process. The warning comes from Paulo Fernandes, coordinator of the Mission Structure, who in an interview with RTP admitted that it was unrealistic to expect a total recovery of everything that was destroyed. He estimates that the work to rebuild affected homes and businesses could take at least a year and a half.
The storms have subsided; it’s time to account for the damage.
The mission structure created to recover these areas revealed that there are more than 160.000 affected companies, 55.000 in the Leiria region alone.
These are such profound losses that a 100% reconstruction may be unrealistic.
What I saw here in terms of emerging energy obviously inspires us, it also makes us responsible, but it gives us hope that, in fact, this territory will reemerge.
In fact, in a situation like this, there is no 100% recovery situation, and it would be unrealistic on my part.
Until February 15, the day the calamity situation ended, 18.000 emergency occurrences were registered.
The Insurance Association reports more than 100.000 claims, half of which were in the last week.
There are currently more than 12 thousand applications for lighter interventions, up to 10 thousand euros, but about 30 thousand are pre-registered with the CCDR.
Around 20 thousand companies have also activated policies, which is about 50% of what is the context of companies in the region.
At least 115.000 policies, most of them private, were activated.
There are about two thousand a day, and 10% have already received a response.
The part of the lighter interventions would say that within a year, they would all be ready to be completed.
There is an area of evicted people, which are in houses with more severe damage, who may be here for a year to a year and a half and are completely closed.
We are talking about at least 170 homes.
And, in terms of the companies component, we already have around 900 million euros raised in terms of the treasury aspect, which, with insurance policies, means that companies are reacting faster, so we can have between six months and nine months here.
For Paulo Fernandes, the resilience he has witnessed gives him hope.
He asks that this misfortune be transformed into learning for the future.