Amid Brazil’s Deadly Floods, Daring Water Rescues Were Only the Beginning

In Rio Grande do Sul, the floodwaters rose so quickly that many people were trapped in their houses or on rooftops. One city hospital had to move patients to upper floors to avoid the rising water.
"The situation was apocalyptic," recalled Carolina Granjeiro, a manager at the disaster response group S.O.S Irmãos do Litoral.
On the second day, Granjeiro said, it was clear that official responders were overwhelmed. A number of locals - many of them businesspeople or other professionals in Rio Grande do Sul, a state in southern Brazil - got onto their own small boats or jet skis and navigated through flooded streets to bring those who were stranded to safety.
"They started going out on their boats and just started rescuing people, dogs, cats, anyone they could find," Granjeiro said.
At points, the water was so high that the amateur rescuers had to worry about bumping into streetlights. For several days, they pulled people from flooded houses, responded to the hospital's distress call, and transported everyone they could find out of the flood zones. Ultimately, using approximately 50 vessels, they rescued more than 1,000 people, according to Granjeiro.

Brazil's fatal flooding in May of this year, caused by torrential rainfall, has killed at least 169 people and displaced more than 600,000. Experts have said that the vast scale of the disaster is due to climate change, and that massive displacements and deadly weather events like this will become increasingly common in a rapidly warming world.
For Duani Teixeira, a businessman in the municipality of Xangri-lá who participated in the rescues, it was the beginning of something entirely new. Working with colleagues, he founded a new NGO, S.O.S Irmãos do Litoral, focused on helping Rio Grande do Sul recover from the disaster.
"I think all of that changed them, and made them want to do something about it. It built a feeling of responsibility," said Granjeiro, an acquaintance of Teixeira's who texted him amid the flooding to ask if he needed help and played a key role at the organization. "They couldn't return to their regular lives. They had to keep helping."
Getting people away from the most immediate danger was only the beginning. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people needed food, clothing, hygiene products, and other necessities. An outbreak of leptospirosis from contaminated water killed several individuals.
The brand-new NGO pivoted fast, turning its attention to finding and distributing supplies to over 150 shelters and health care centers, and procuring food for volunteer-run kitchens. "Wherever there were two or three grandmas, there was a kitchen," Granjeiro said. The community response was tremendous - it's rare to meet a local who didn't donate time or money, she recalled - but organizing and transporting food and supplies, and auditing the recipients to make sure they'd use donations efficiently, was a huge effort.
As part of a larger response to the disaster, Direct Relief helped S.O.S Irmãos do Litoral meet emergency needs, providing a $50,000 grant along with nine pallets of nutritional and hydration products.
"We didn't have enough supplies and food to help those who were undernourished," Granjeiro recalled. "It was really efficient what they sent."

In retrospect, Granjeiro said, it was astonishing that she and her colleagues formed a licensed NGO in four days, found donors able to help, and developed procedures for procurement, oversight, and distribution. The group accomplishes its widespread work primarily through the work of volunteers. Members are so focused on helping - and so aware of the need - that they have to be reminded to go home and rest.
The floodwaters have receded and many have returned home, but the group's work is only beginning. They've pivoted again, focusing on providing food and necessities to organizations working on the ground. "We became…specialized in finding serious projects that are still helping," she said. "The challenge was to find those projects that were doing a very good job of reaching people."

S.O.S Irmãos do Litoral's members are keenly aware that the danger is not over. A return to normalcy is years away for affected communities in Rio Grande do Sul. The region is still alarmingly vulnerable to climate disasters.
"We're facing future tragedies ahead," Granjeiro said
But she's heartened by the outpouring of support she's seen, and by a sense of togetherness and responsibility in communities across the state. "Everyone was touched, everyone did something," she said. "What we did here changed everybody."