Catastrophic flooding in Germany and Belgium

[Onkel Neal]

Man, oh man, terrible disaster.

In the hardest-hit parts of Germany, two months’ worth of rain fell in 24 hours, according to the Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany’s meteorological agency. A map tweeted by the agency revealed that it was a 1-in-100-year deluge over a large swath of western Germany, or one that has just a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...many-flooding/

[Buddahaid]

I know the feeling and it is not good. 1982 Marin County, 2nd Valley, Inverness.

It seems so quaint now but it was an awful mess at the time. The farthest property up second valley had the barn and animals destroyed by a torrent of water and logs, the house was spared from that, but then a slide slammed into the kitchen severing the propane lines and the house then burned down.

Other houses were moved hundreds of yards and the National Guard was deployed to restrict access. Tetanus shots were required to pass the check points.

http://www.sparselysageandtimely.com...-storm-of-1982

[Catfish]

Yes lots of european countries experiencing flooding and destruction. In Germany in the Ahr region the flood came within 15 minutes in the middle of the night so not enough time to react. No current, no light, no telephone, gas lines ruptured. Usually summer is not the time where you have any such weather; a castle that has been sitting there for centuries has been partially destroyed.
Jim has some info here, and Skybird posted photos in the german politics thread.

[Aktungbby]

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...postcount=3554

[Catfish]

^ overlooked that

[Onkel Neal]

The cleanup effort is going to be massive.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-hits-180.html

[Skybird]

Its being reported that certain hotspots will be without electricity and water for months to come.

Some elder of the eldest say that even after bombardement in WWII things were not that bad in their villages.

Talk of of monumental system failure on the political level, because there were warnings from an European weather network monitoring events up to nine days ahead and correctly identifying most of the hotspots that later got hit. Political leaders decided to not take it serious and not to call the alarm.

I say it was fear to be the one responsible for hitting the red button. Shoot all weasels! Where is Helmut Schmidt when you need him?

[Skybird]

British scientists: Germany had precise warnings, and nothing happened.



https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/g...work-cn99wjxzs


Paywall, sorry.

[Reece]

Political leaders decided to not take it serious and not to call the alarm.

They should all be sacked, even stand trial.

My heart goes out to all those effected by this disaster, how does one recover from something like this, especially with covid-19 lurking about??
So sad!

[Skybird]

https://translate.google.com/transla.../27433034.html

[Rockstar]

What can government do? In todayÂ’s Information Age people here pay attention to the local news and weather on tv, internet and radio to make their own decisions.

Though our state and local government screwed up once. When several years ago Elliott City, MD was severely damaged by flooding.

They moved quickly and did an excellent job rebuilding the city and businesses in record time, it looked new and shiny and modern. But failed to install any barriers to divert waters should it happen again. Guess what? Next year the the rains came and wiped everything out AGAIN.

This time they built the barriers before they rebuilt the city. But it was too late most businesses couldnÂ’t survive a second time.

[Onkel Neal]

This is going to take a massive volunteer effort, but I know Germany is up to the task.

Numerous locations in western Germany received 5 to 7 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts, between Tuesday and Thursday. Some of the most extreme downpours occurred Wednesday night into Thursday, when more than a half-foot of rain fell in less than 12 hours. Here are some select totals from western Germany:

Reifferscheid received 8.1 inches in just 9 hours, according to CNN.
Cologne received 6 inches in the 24 hours ending Thursday morning, according to CNN.
Lüdenscheid received 4.5 inches of rain in 24 hours, according to Deutscher Wetterdienst.
Düsseldorf received 1.89 inches in 12 hours Tuesday night into Wednesday, according to AccuWeather. Its three-day (between early Tuesday morning and early Thursday morning) total was 5.6 inches.
Heavy rain not only affected Germany but also Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.

That's reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey which slammed us in 2018:

60.58 inches: The highest storm total rainfall, found in Nederland, northeast of Houston. Rainfall within a tenth of an inch of that total was recorded in Groves, a neighboring community.

All the rivers came out of their banks and flooded the whole region. My land that I was planning to build on at the time had 4 feet of water on it for 6 days. That's one reason I sold it last year and bought some land further inland, up by Dallas.

The high-pressure system over the Atlantic was flanked by an unusually intense zone of low pressure to the east over Central Europe that helped generate the downpours. The low was sandwiched between another area of high pressure over Eastern Europe, creating a weather system traffic jam that allowed heavy rain to persist. Computer models showed that the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, or a quantity known as total precipitable water, was comparable to those seen along the U.S. Gulf Coast during hurricane landfalls.

Before the torrents, Deutscher Wetterdienst had warned that weather models were predicting extreme amounts of precipitation in some areas.

The intensity of rain overwhelmed local rivers that flow into the Rhine River basin, and the volume of water overflowed several dams.

You guys basically had a tropical storm camp out on top of you.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Talk of of monumental system failure on the political level, because there were warnings from an European weather network monitoring events up to nine days ahead and correctly identifying most of the hotspots that later got hit. Political leaders decided to not take it serious and not to call the alarm.

Honestly, if you live near a river or coastline, you shouldn't be waiting for the politicians to tell you what to do. The weather forecasters probably worked themselves into a frenzy, this should have been obvious.

[Jimbuna]

Merkel visited there today and promised all the help needed from the German government but I'm not sure if she'll still be in office to see what transpires.

[Skybird]

Embarassing. Clueless stammering like this will not help to easde the anger and even rage that grow amongst the flood victims. Like so often these days, German dminstration and pltlics was full of boatsign words - and failed when actions counted and words had ended.



https://translate.google.com/transla..._13512482.html

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Merkel visited there today and promised all the help needed from the German government but I'm not sure if she'll still be in office to see what transpires.

While Merkel may or may not be in office, one things is certain: Germany will of course rebuild the affected areas now that the flood waters have receded.