We’re the ones that save ourselves
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One year ago, severe floods in Brazil’s Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul affected over two million people, displacing over a hundred thousand from their homes.
As the climate crisis makes environmental disasters like this more frequent, it is especially important to know how they unfold for persons with disabilities.
Persons with disabilities face increased risks, and emergency response often doesn't anticipate accessibility or different needs.
Looking at the floods last year shows these dynamics, but also how persons with disabilities responded. And how, out of the chaos, came solidarity from neighbours, associations and people from all over Brazil.
About this edition
Disability Debrief publishes original reporting on disability thanks to generous support from readers. Thanks to Sabine for a new contribution.
Alessandra Sousa is a researcher in Disability Studies and Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Kinanty Andini is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia.
The sky fell
It was late April 2024, autumn in the Southern hemisphere. In Brazil we were desperately waiting for the temperature to drop, as an endless summer had been punishing us since June the year before. It was almost impossible to be outside at midday – sometimes I felt I might suddenly self-combust.
A heatwave provoked an atmospheric block, creating circumstances for an extreme weather event. On April 27th, the sky fell over Rio Grande do Sul. For ten days, it rained the same amount expected for five months.
As a result, Lagoa dos Patos’ hydrologic system – the largest lagoon in Brazil – overflowed. Likewise, an old water system was overwhelmed, flooding cities. The population, known as gaúchos, were forced to leave their homes.
The authority for monitoring natural disasters reported a moderate risk of sudden flooding. And as I heard later from Matheus Valente and Juliana Carvalho, they received no warning from local authorities to prepare for the consequences of heavy rain.
The floods were devastating. Over two million people were affected, with 146,000 people displaced from their homes, and more than 50,000 left homeless. Records show that 800 were injured, 184 died and 25 missing. 70,000 were welcomed in provisional shelters, of whom 2,042 were persons with disabilities.
“Everything was chaotic”
Matheus lives with his wife in Eldorado do Sul, located on the shores of the Guaíba river. Flooding is common during heavy rain, and it already happened in September and November 2023. On one occasion, rainwater reached 20 cm, turning his home into a pool.
That experience meant that last year Matheus and his wife were prepared to lift their belongings to higher places in the house. But in April 2024 the water rose too fast, forcing them to leave.
Luckily, Matheus's mother's house was located on higher ground, and it became a shelter for all his relatives. Eventually, there were 18 people, 8 dogs, 7 cats, and a chicken inside a room. According to Matheus, some of the others were very nervous. He remained calm.
The city was flooded, and its citizens had to be evacuated. “People from inside and outside of the state organised themselves,” he tells me. “Everything was chaotic concerning security and rescue”. (These and other quotes in the article are translated from Portuguese.)
Two days after abandoning his home, Matheus asked for help in a WhatsApp group created by neighbours. There were rescue teams from the authorities, and also those made up of volunteers using their own boats or jet skis. A rescue boat arrived the same day he asked for help, and took him to an accessible shelter equipped to assist people with disabilities.
Accessible shelters
Accessible shelters were organised by different disability associations or service providers. For example the Canoas Association of the Physically Disabled (ACADEF) transformed its rehabilitation center into a shelter. Its employees worked with volunteers to help the elderly, those with mobility issues, and people with physical impairments.
Likewise, in Porto Alegre, the Instituto Social Pertence (a non-profit supporting disabled people) responded by mapping the disabled population and its needs. Realizing the lack of specialised support in other shelters, they decided to provide different accommodation. With private financial aid they rented a building to provide housing for six months.
“I never felt so vulnerable”
Juliana was visiting Rio Grande do Sul at the time of the floods. Originally born there, she was back visiting family and friends after eight years living in New Zealand.
When heavy rain began in the north of the state, she was with two foreign friends at a hotel in the state capital Porto Alegre. She had an uneasy feeling about the volume of water coming, and her sister, who lives 3 hours away in the city of Nova Prata, advised her to move.
But, as Porto Alegre flooded, leading to electric blackouts and shortage of piped water, Juliana found herself trapped in her hotel room. She watched the TV in despair, with the hum of helicopters outside. “The end of the world was happening in front of us, and none of us understanding the situation.”
What she did understand though was the risks she faced, with a limited supply of catheters, and medicine out of reach: “I never felt so vulnerable.”
“From hell, to paradise”
Her hotel did have some advantages. It had a power generator, and she could make phone calls to help friends, or welcome her relatives with access to water and electricity. In the chaos, she noticed people coming together: “complete solidarity, even from the hotel staff who had lost their homes.”
With the main airport closed, there were few ways to leave. Desperate to get away, Juliana and her friends had enough money to rent a 4x4 Jeep. They set off at 4.a.m. and were driven 500 km along destroyed roads to Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.
Finally, after crossing the state borders, she allowed herself to cry. “When I arrived, I collapsed. I went from hell, to paradise”. After she was safe she was able to shift from survival-mode to supporting others with donations and volunteering.
“Comprehensive protection”
Between 2013 and 2022, 93% of Brazilian municipalities faced natural disasters, including floods, severe drought or landslides.
After severe floods occurred in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro in early 2011, the Federal Government prepared a protocol, published in 2013, for “Comprehensive Protection” of children, adolescents, elderly people and people with disabilities in situations of risks and disasters. It sets out principles of rights-based preparation and response, with concrete actions to be taken in different sectors.
National and city plans have been developed for emergencies, but the state of Rio Grande do Sul had none. The catastrophe revealed how unprepared local authorities were to support the whole population.
Communications and rescue
Lack of preparation meant that when alerts and advice were issued, not everyone could access them.
Civil defence alerts, speeches from the authorities and weather news were published without accessibility measures. Social media content lacked alternative text describing visuals, subtitles, or content in Brazil Sign Language (Libras).
When it came to evacuation procedures, untrained rescue teams used sound signals, whistles, and loudspeakers to warn or offer help, but no lights.
Reporting from Agência Pública shows the impact this had on deaf people. Some only realised something was going wrong when they woke up in wet beds, or noticed the smell of water and sewage.
One older deaf couple got stuck in their home with no access to communication and limited provisions. Their children raised the alarm and neighbours were able to rescue them.
Those that got to shelters faced further inaccessibility, according to the same reporting. Volunteers might mistake someone being deaf for them being in shock or not wanting to talk.
To address some of these gaps, the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) brought together academics, interpreters and students to post news with sign-language on social media and Youtube.
Other groups also faced barriers in rescue. For example, rescue teams did not know how to support autistic people either. And in the rescue, many had to leave their canes, wheelchairs, walkers, or crutches behind.
“Ableism or feeling good about themselves”
In Brazil, it is expected that people will help each other, especially after an environmental disaster. In the aftermath of the floods, solidarity spread across the country. People donated supplies, gave money, or volunteered.
Marina Batista sought to use this solidarity to get support for people with disabilities. She is a well-known disability activist in Brazil, and started seeking donations on her Instagram profile.
This was the second time Marina raised funds to support people with disabilities after an environmental disaster. In 2022, she collected resources for people with disabilities affected by a flood in Bahia, a state in Brazil’s Northeast. That experience had shown her that people generally donate cheap devices, useless for daily life.
This time her goal was to fundraise for specific needs, so she highlighted what sort of items were needed for disabled folks. And she also saw it as an opportunity to draw attention to disability in a positive way. Rather than calling for pity, she shared information about how people were affected.
According to Marina, thinking about people with disabilities and their needs was a novelty for supporters. And she recognised they might have different motivations: “People are disposed to donate. I can’t say if it’s ableism or so that they feel good about themselves.”
“Everybody has something to give”
I spent an afternoon talking with Marina, but I would love to listen to her ideas for hours. Marina uses a wheelchair and depends on the function of her BIPAP (which assists with breathing). She wonders what would happen if she was caught in an environmental disaster: “I would like to know that someone would reach out their hand to help me.”
Marina tells me about the mess of the first two weeks, the absence of plans to help people with disabilities and the lack of integrated data. Local services were also affected, and their staff in shock. Getting donations to those in need became a challenge.
To try to coordinate efforts, Marina helped to create a workgroup with federal and local government councils on people with disabilities and the Gaucho Association of Muscular Dystrophy. The workgroup launched a communication channel to map people with disabilities and their needs.
It was two months of hard work. Those in need asked for help on social media or via phone. Marina tracked them down, got quotes and purchased the items needed directly. She told me that the action supported two hundred people, with lightweight wheelchairs, bath chairs, adapted furniture, crutches, medicine, diapers, sensory toys, psychological assistance, recreational activities, and other daily needs.
As time went by, donations decreased. As Marina explains, “It's people's solidarity that determines the length of the intervention”. Both government organisations and charities were getting assistance actions on track. Marina was exhausted, and needed to take care of her own health.
Looking back, Marina reflects on what her campaign showed about solidarity. “Everybody has something to give. I gave my time and ideas about strategy”. She sees her most important contribution not in fundraising but in bringing people together: “bridges against ableism are more important than donations”.
Back home
After staying in an accessible shelter, Matheus sought refuge with a friend from a neighboring city that was less affected by the rain. When the floodwater finally receded, it was time to return home. Many houses had been looted.
Inside, it was a terrifying moment to face the destruction. What once were prized belongings were covered in mud and turned into trash. Alone with his wife, Matheus knew that recovering would be difficult.
Water had reached an incredible three meters, leaving a trail of dirt that had to be cleaned by themselves. Friends, family and neighbours were also trying to rebuild their own homes, so not able to support.
But Matheus could get some help from elsewhere. A repair team from Porto Seguro, a well-known Brazilian insurance company, arrived in the city. When they heard about his situation, their crew spent four days helping to clear debris and a preliminary cleaning. Matheus benefited from donations too, including from Marina, whose fundraising helped get an electric wheelchair, nursing care, medicine, and repairs in the home.
There were a range of recovery programmes from the state and federal authorities, including financial grants, tax exemptions and housing for those displaced. But these also had barriers, often needing to be applied for online. One more time, volunteers organized to fill the void in public service, providing devices and helping people to ask for financial aid.
Learning from mistakes and failures
The consequences of the disaster highlight the relevance of creating evacuation policies and plans that contemplate people with disabilities and place them at the core of humanitarian actions.
This lesson has been learned by the people I spoke with. It is the current goal of Marina’s activism, aiming to draw attention to the relationship between disability and climate crisis. As well as sharing the experience she gained in her two campaigns, she also insists that emergency plans include people with disabilities as both planners and supported populations.
Juliana has returned to New Zealand, and has been using her experience to raise awareness there. Evacuation plans lack accessibility, and a special concern to her is accessible emergency warnings, such as light signs for deaf people and information in plain language for people with learning disabilities.
But it’s not clear if local authorities have learned the same lessons. Matheus’ town launched an emergency evacuation plan after the tragedy of 2024. According to him, there was no public debate on the subject nor consultation, let alone inclusion of persons with disabilities in that. In addition, Matheus said local authorities never explained what happened, and the climate crisis is not a topic of regular debate.
We’re the ones that save each other
When I began my reporting, my primary goal was to raise awareness about the consequences of climate change. Brazil’s experience highlights that authorities are barely prepared to deal with environmental disasters, lacking effective plans that support the whole population.
In Rio Grande do Sul, people with disabilities faced especially hard times because of inaccessible warnings, untrained rescue teams, and a lack of information about who needed support.
It’s something that is becoming more relevant for all of us. Are there efficient climate-weather monitoring systems and response plans where you live?
But in the end, working on this piece left me with hope. It was breathtaking to see people’s strength to deal with problems in hard times.
Regular people and government and non-government organisations working on disability organised themselves to get help or support others. They made networks of solidarity to provide assistance.
Or, in Marina’s words, “No fim, é a gente que se salva". In the end, we’re the ones who save ourselves.
Abraços,
Alessandra
Outro
See more about the impacts of climate change and disability: on the Debrief's climate hub.
For more from Alessandra, see her published research (in Portuguese and French).
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Acknowledgments
Dear Debriefer, I appreciate your time. Comments are welcomed!
There is no work done without cooperation, and this one was built by the kindness of some people.
First of all, the ones that make this happen, in other words, the readers and organisations that support the Debrief. A special thanks to the interviewees Juliana and Matheus, representing the strength of gaúchos, and Marina Baptista, from whom I learned so much.
A reported piece counts on different sources of information. An important one was the round table called Socio-environmental emergencies and disasters: What about persons with disabilities? organized by the Intersectoral Commission for Health Care for People with Disabilities, the National Health Council, and Abra SUS. It gave voice to people with disabilities to share their concerns and suggestions about the subject, which was an opportunity to listen to and learn from different perspectives.
Thanks to Áine for highlighting climate change to Debriefers and helping connect me to Juliana. Additionally, to Kinanty Andini for illustrating these words.
Last but not least, Peter and his patience in respecting my slow-motion process of writing and masterly editing. Gratitude!