In the week between February 7 and 13, the Pandiá Calógeras State School in the Alcântara neighborhood of São Gonçalo in the Greater Rio metropolitan region flooded three times due to heavy rainfall. On Tuesday, February 7, the ground floor was completely submerged causing significant losses to the school. The building was once again flooded during the storm on Saturday, February 11, as a neighboring stream overflowed and tore down a wall separating it from the school. As a result, the school has been indefinitely shut down by the Civil Defense, according to the State Education Secretariat (Seeduc) in a statement issued in response to a request for this article. Two days later, the storm on Monday, February 13 meant São Gonçalo was hit by an extreme weather event for a third time, facing yet again the consequences of the lack of infrastructure and preparedness to handle such weather conditions. Once again, the Pandiá Calógeras school flooded.
About the author: Amanda Ares is a journalist, graduate of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), and has been covering cities since 2020 at A Seguir: Niterói. She lives in Fonseca and, between 2020 and 2021, worked on the Jovens Comunicadores project at BemTV, helping to combat misinformation about Covid-19 in the Rio Metropolitan Region. She is part of the NGO SUM, which aims to discuss and prevent the impacts of climate change in São Gonçalo. She is also a photographer and filmmaker.
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