I have been following the news about Leiria and the surrounding areas, and the trail of destruction left by storm Kristin, with a lump in my throat that won't go away. And no, I am not there. I’m not shovelling mud out of my house, nor looking at the sky through a hole where a roof should be. But there is an exercise I can’t stop doing, and it makes my blood run cold: what if it were here?

What if it were Microgreens? What if it were our greenhouses, our years of work, literally flying away in ten minutes? What if our people—the ones who show up and pour their sweat into this every day—arrived tomorrow to find no ground to stand on and no roof to shelter them?

Enough of looking at the images from Leiria as if they were a fiction film. What we see—shattered businesses and homes, pavilions twisted like crumpled paper, decimated fields—aren't just "material damage". They are lives on hold. When a company flies away, the salary doesn’t land in anyone’s account. When a school is left without windows, a child’s future is paused.

The country runs at two speeds and Kristin proved it. While some discuss "technicalities" in offices in Lisbon, there are people in Leiria who can’t take a hot shower. Who have no signal to tell their family they are alive.

We are talking about an amputation. Leiria was cut in half while the rest of the country watched videos from the sofa. It is revolting to see the "seems like" politics. It seems like they help, it seems like they grieve, it seems like they care. But the truth is uglier: the interior and the centre remain Lisbon's backyard. They serve only for misfortune statistics or propaganda photographs amidst the rubble.

I look at Microgreens and I see the faces of my people. And I ask myself: who would hold them if our world flew away in ten minutes? If Microgreens turned into a twisted iron skeleton before we could even say "help"? Who would bring us dignity instead of empty press releases? Who would guarantee that "tomorrow" wasn't just a black hole of bureaucracy?

What happened in Leiria wasn't a meteorological stroke of bad luck; it was a brutal reminder that we are all tragically vulnerable. That the distance between "succeeding" and "having nothing" is just a gust of wind.

Don’t look away; help however you can. Share, speak out, demand solutions.

Don’t share this out of pity. Share it out of anger. Share it because tomorrow the wind could change direction and knock on your door. Share it because if we don’t scream now for the neighbour who lost everything, who will scream for us when we are the "forgotten ones" on the next news cycle?

Leiria cannot be forgotten as soon as the sun shines again. Because for those who lost their footing, the storm has only just begun.

Photography: João Porfírio