TRAFARIA — Carminda Calado sees the waves of the Tagus river, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean, through her living room window. She has lived a few meters from the beach in the Segundo Torrão neighborhood of Trafaria, near Lisbon, since the 1970s.
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Accustomed to the coming and going of the sea, Calad never imagined that her life would one day be endangered by its fury. But in 2002, she was swept away by waves that reached her backyard and was only saved by when she hit a tree.
The physical and emotional scars of that episode are visible to this day. She says she is now always vigilant.
No way out
A long time ago, Calado taught her eldest son how to escape through the roof and how to bring his sister with him, in case they were in danger, and she couldn’t make it.
“What belongs to the sea will go back to the sea. This all belongs to it. Maybe I won’t be here to see it, but I know what will happen. The sea will come back to take what belongs to it,” she says. With nowhere to go and no way to support herself without the small cafe she opened next to her house, Calado’s only option is to hope that the water won’t advance.
But scientists predict a different scenario.
A new method
Stories like that of “Dona Mimi,” as Carminda Calado is called, are quite common here. And they have sparked the mobilization of a neighborhood where walls are very fragile; Segundo Torrão is one of the largest self-built neighborhoods of greater Lisbon.
The question “will the sea eat the neighborhood” was the starting point for the Novo Decisores de Ciência (New Science Decision Makers) project, which was active between 2014 and 2022 under the initiative of the Canto do Curió (Corner of Curiosity) association in Trafaria. The question was asked during a game where people were invited to share their concerns about their neighborhood. The sea was one of them.
The conversation led to the creation of a different method to face the challenge, which unites residents’ traditional knowledge with the scientific knowledge of coastal geology and oceanography researchers investigating natural phenomena in the area.
United against a greater danger
With the support of the Associação dos Moradores do Bairro do Segundo Torrão neighborhood association and other partners, the project aimed to incentivize residents’ participation in solving local problems — through cultural activities, sharing experiences, environmental education and audiovisual productions.
While the project no longer formally exists, its pillars are still in place. Residents are still united not only by the risk that the neighborhood will be submerged under the sea, but also by the precarious state of housing, unemployment and economic limitations that generate exclusion.
The situation in Segundo Torrão caught the attention of Xavier Bertin, from the LIENSs Laboratory at the University of La Rochelle in France, who was put in charge of the technical studies for this project. And to this day, Bertin alerts the community whenever he detects possible threats. That information is then passed on to the local Civic Protection unit, so they can intervene and protect families.
The project would not have had the same results without the community sticking together.
The information provided by Bertin and researchers is essential. But the project would not have had the same results without the community sticking together, interacting and helping each other. The analysis of the waves, for example, was only possible thanks to the work of António dos Santos, known in the community as “Toni,” an experienced fisherman who volunteered to helped the team of researchers to implant sensors on the seabed.
Few know this place as well as dos Santos, who has been fishing since he was six — just like his father, his grandfather, his uncles and his brothers. Born and raised on these shores, he has witnessed numerous episodes of panic among locals. “I’ve seen houses and furniture be swept away… I saw my mother-in-law’s house be flooded. She lost everything she had,” he said.
Dos Santos believes that the stone barriers on the beach are not enough and can even be a danger when waves are intense. “They are very strong. In case of a big tide — “aguas grandes” (big waters), as people say — everything would be swept away. The stone barrier would burst. The sea would pick them up and wash them away,” he said.
Licking waves
João Cão Duarte, a member of the Corner of Curiosity association, said that adapting the scientific language was a essential in helping the neighborhood understand the dangers it faces.
Infragravitational waves — a type of gravity waves generated at the surface of the ocean, and one of the main threats to Segundo Torrão — have become “licking waves,” an expression that Duarte adopted from Calado, who in turn learned from fishermen when she was a child. The term is used to describe this type of wave as it doesn’t break up, but rather invades the coast quickly and with a lot of energy, destroying everything standing in its way.
Duarte says that the community has been living with this problem for decades, and that one of the works they did was to collect documents — photos, videos and multimedia — of the story recounted by different generations.
We shouldn’t leave Trafaria. This is essential. It’s not correct to dissect a community.
“In 1977 there was a terrible flood that took several houses, which at the time were more ramshackle, wooden houses. The episode marked the collective memory at the time. In the following years, in 1978 and 1979, other floods generated anxiety,” he said.
Duarte, who works as a cultural mediator, stresses that the neighborhood has been looking for rehousing for many years. He talks about a certain prejudice that has developed toward the community, which is seen as a peripheral area with dirt roads, various structural difficulties, such as the lack of public sanitation, and no prospects for the future.
Contacted by Mensagem, the town hall said that the Local Housing Strategy plans for rehousing, and that it will be financed by the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility. In the first step of the plan, 95 housing units will be built, and 65 families have already been relocated, sparking huge debates concerning their new living conditions.
The people of Segundo Torrão have been complaining about the state of the neighborhood and waiting for a permanent solution for a long time. “Some people were forced to abandon their territory without further explanations, without an official notification, some completely unaware of what was going on. Some families were deemed ineligible for the rehousing plan and risk becoming homeless,” Duarte said.
On the risk of floods, the town hall says it is attentive and shares the management of responsibilities with the local and central administration.
Neighborhood identity
Neighborhood residents are watching the situation carefully. Ana Almeida, a socio-cultural animator, and her family were among the first to move to Segundo Torrão in the 1950s. She would always listen to her mother telling stories of how her grandfather helped move wooden houses with ox carts everytime the sea would advance. The houses were built on stilts so that the water could flow underneath, but sometimes they still had to be moved.
Despite the risks, Almeida’s best memories are still associated with the sea. “I remember climbing up and down the rocks, catching crabs, going out fishing on boats, walking along the beach. There’s still that connection today. I don’t think I could live away from the sea. It’s where I grew up,” she said.
Almeida said she is saddened by the thought of a neighborhood that’s been united for so many years splitting up. To preserve the identity of Segundo Torrão, she said that residents should not be rehoused far from the sea.
“In my opinion we shouldn’t leave Trafaria. This is essential. It’s not correct to dissect a community. And emptying and destroying it would be even worse. If for security reasons these people must be moved, they should not split up and they should stay in their land, which is here,” she said.
