A sort of The one-and-a-half-meter-high brown line on the kitchen wall marks where the water flows when the house of Christian Ulrich is flooded. The electrician stood in the mud-spattered wall. He recalled that after the warning came, there was hardly enough time to get food and water in the cellar, and then send his mother up the stairs, his voice choked. He just let the neighbor who knocked on the door come in for help, and there was an “omnipotent collapse-like an explosion”. A huge wave of water rolled in from the back and front of the house, pushing open the front door and many windows too powerfully.
Eight days later, Ulrich stood in the ruins and said that he could finally “breathe again”, thanks to a man on a mechanical excavator outside Bachmer Street, who has been on the street in recent days Clean up the rubble of Ulrich’s house and other things. The furniture and accessories downstairs, as well as the contents of the cellar, still filled the street, but he said that the smelly pile is now only a small part of its original height. “We are very grateful to these people. But we regret that so far, the official assistance has been very little,” he said.
A banner hung on the window upstairs. Ulrich’s mother was trying to recover from the trauma. It said: “Thank you dear helper.”
Ingo Mellenthin, who operates the excavator, set off from Herten, 100 miles away, and volunteered with an excavator borrowed from a landscaping company 100 miles away. His son Jonas is doing the same thing on the adjacent street. “We think we’d better come here to help, because we know we have the skills they might need,” said the self-employed builder who was supposed to go on holiday.
A similar situation is happening in thousands of families in the spa town of Rhineland-Palatinate-all of which have no running water, electricity or natural gas-and in turn are happening in dozens of towns and villages in the region. , Some of them are still cut off. Nearly 42,000 people were affected and many lost their homes. In Rhineland-Palatinate alone, 128 people died. Another 766 were injured and 155 were missing.
On one street after another, rows of muddy volunteers scooped up the soil from the cellar and buckets on the first floor, and then passed them out. The last in the chain dumped dirt on the street. Many people use a joke or a song to emphasize work. A group of women and girls calling themselves “Paw Patrol” are cleaning the basement of the physiotherapy clinic on Ahrhutstrasse. “It’s time to help, it’s that simple,” Hatice Sadet said. The youngest helper found was 7-year-old Eno. Wearing Wellington boots, he and many others pushed the shovel into the thick gray viscous mud. The mud must be diluted with water to prevent it from clogging the sewers.
On the market square, Hartmut Schönhöfer was busy peeling plaster from the walls of the picturesque 18th century Marktbrunnen (market fountain) bar. He and his wife and owner Martina Caspers spent most of their time doing painstaking renovations . It was originally scheduled to open in three weeks.
“When the water comes, it’s like a pinball, it seems to come from all directions, and it’s very fast,” he said. “Cars are swimming up and down the street.
“None of us died-we are grateful for that,” he added. “But our tragedy is that we invested 300,000 euros (£256,000) for refurbishment, and now we need another 150,000-200,000 euros to repair it. But we do not have basic damage insurance [to cover storms and severe weather]. It’s just not available. “This story repeats itself in the town’s families and businesses.
At Dr. von Ehrenwall’s psychiatry and neurology clinic, Heike Heideck, the deputy administrative manager, delegates the work to the staff gathered to help clean up. Approximately 150 patients had to be moved to the top floor, where they stayed overnight, and then evacuated to a temporary shelter at the Haribo Candy Factory.
On the Kurgartenstrasse in another district, on a promenade popular with wealthy weekend visitors from Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and beyond, Förtsches is sorting out the remains of their antique shop. “Come on, treat it as a souvenir,” Udo Förtsch said half-jokingly, picking up a muddy Marc Chagall print. His wife Uschi cleaned some brass statues and a glass vase and put them in a plastic box. However, their remaining inventory of 150,000 euros was more or less destroyed.
They also have no insurance. “We plan to retire in a few years. We can forget now,” he said. A shopkeeper came over and told them that their landlord’s 18-year-old daughter had drowned while trying to take the car out of the garage when the flood came. “We are lucky,” Uschi Förtsch said with tears.
A few steps away, the curtains of the five-star Steigenberger Hotel flutter in the wind. The windows were broken by water, and the window frames were bent along with the pipes and lamp posts outside. The ballroom was full of mud, and plates, cutlery and champagne buckets were scattered on the floor. A Peugeot was thrown on the hotel terrace. “It’s like Bosnia after the war,” said Tim from a Gummersbach company that specializes in building cleanup. He has just arrived and is surveying the site on the brown, fast-flowing banks of the Aar River.
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Above: Benjamin Monschau (right) and his assistant Johannes Ehmer shoveling dirt from his grandfather’s grave.Above: Destroyed and silted graves in the cemetery
In the Ahrweiler district, trucks and tractors lent or driven by local farmers, gardening centers, and construction companies drove past Ahrtor. This is one of the four gates of the ancient city wall of the old city. The queue for tips seems endless. Muddy items from homes and businesses—washing machines, carpets, wine barrels, birdhouses, store models, car seats—are piled up in huge piles.
The task of the excavator operator is to compress as much of the mound as possible and load it onto a truck, which will transport it to the entire incinerator Germany And the Netherlands. When he found a red carpet in a hotel or restaurant in the garbage dump, he picked it up with the teeth of an excavator bucket, waved to his colleague, and provided a moment of relief in suffering.
Operational efficiency has been fine-tuned so that truck maintenance engineers can provide maintenance services at any time, from punctured tires to loose screws, which are in great demand.
Auths drove their “Brat King” dining truck, 160 miles from Fulda, filled with thousands of sausages and other donations from butchers, supermarkets and individuals for helpers and residents provide food.
Maria’s Delphi restaurant is in ruins. She and the waitress Lily ate curry sausages and fries because they are cleaning. Lily recalled that after the flood warning was issued late at night on Wednesday, July 14, she got off work early and drove home across the bridge over the Aer River. “I swear I can feel it changing,” she said. When it subsequently collapsed, there were several cars on it. “I think if I am 15 minutes late, I might be washed away.” She pointed to the bridge a few meters away, and the bridge seemed to be broken in half. The excavator that was trying to remove the surrounding rubble had just tipped over in fast-moving water, but the driver was towed away safely.
Nearby, near the river bank, part of the fire station had collapsed and the garage door was blocked, but fortunately the fire brigade drove the vehicle out in time.
A few meters further ahead, the cemetery in the town will be desecrated. Cars and vans were thrown into the broken tombstone, with almost no blade of grass visible. Benjamin Monschau leaned towards the grave of his grandfather Erich. The tombstone is still standing, but with the help of friends, he is trying to rescue the remaining tombstones from the sticky mud. “I don’t want my grandmother to see it like this,” he said.
The main reason for wearing masks here is to prevent dirt, dust and bacteria, not the coronavirus. Muddy handprints have become a sign of cleanup work.
Elisabeth Parschau put two of hers in front of her boyfriend’s T-shirt. “What we need now is a lot of love and hope it will continue to come-in the next few months, the town will need a lot of help,” she said. She is sitting and playing the piano, flanked by two water tanks transported by the army earlier. Outside their home, the idyllic courtyard is full of vines.
She said that the instrument placed in half a meter of water had been destroyed. But before it was transported away with the other fragments, she had already written on the invitation letter “play me“-Just play with me-that’s it. Residents and rescuers who need to catch their breath have readily accepted this proposal.
