Late on Saturday night, Hurricane Leslie made landfall in Portugal as a post-tropical Storm with winds of up to 176km/hr, causing a wake of destruction in its path: smashing windows, tipping over trucks, destroying a caravan park, evacuating residents, and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes. This is a very rare event — the last time a storm of this magnitude was recorded here was in 1842.

What were we doing three hours before the Portuguese meteorological institute predicted the winds and rain would begin? I had a meeting in Vila do Conde, and I put us outside on a restaurant deck with this view over the water.

I was here a couple of weeks before, also for a meeting at this very spot, but I didn’t have my camera with me. This time I was more prepared.

I don’t make a practice of holding meetings before storms, but the whole country had been warned it was coming and by the looks of it, we had time to go home before it arrived. I was at an event on Friday night and it was unusually warm at midnight (21C) which does portend a storm, but you wouldn’t have guessed it on Saturday morning, or even in the afternoon when I shot these pictures.

After Vila do Conde, we also made a stop at Vila Chá and one more in the centre of Maia before the rain finally arrived shortly after 8pm.

We were lucky that we didn’t lose power or sustain any damage in my neighbourhood. The worst-hit area was in the central coast region in the districts of Coimbra and Leiria, between Porto and Lisbon. The eye of the storm wreaked major havoc to trees, homes, and commercial property. 

The next two photos were taken in Vila Chá, a little fishing village further south in the municipality of Vila do Conde. By 6:30pm, the sky is definitely looking ominous.

October 13, 2018
Album: Portugal [Autumn 2018]

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