“Like a horror movie”: German residents say the warning time is short when the flood hits-National

Like the other residents in his town Germany, Wolfgang Huste knew that the flood was coming. He said that no one told him how bad it would be.

The 66-year-old Ahrweiler antique bookseller said that at around 8pm on July 14, the first serious warning was to evacuate or move to a higher floor of a building near the Ahr River. Huste then heard a brief emergency siren, the church bell rang, and then there was silence.

“It’s scary, just like in a horror movie,” he said.

Huste quickly rescued his car from the underground garage. When he parked it on the street, the water was knee-high. Five minutes later, safely indoors, he saw his car floating on the street. Later he learned that he had also lost books dating back to the early 1500s, and his total loss is estimated to exceed 200,000 Euros (235,000 USD).

“The warning time is too short,” Huster said.

Last week’s floods in Germany and neighboring countries confirmed that the death toll exceeded 210 people on Friday. The economic loss is expected to reach billions. Others in Germany asked why the emergency system designed to warn people of imminent disasters did not work.

When the power went out, sirens in some towns went off. In other places, there are no sirens at all; volunteer firefighters have to knock on people’s doors and tell them what to do.

1:43Hundreds of people are still missing after record rainfall and flooding in Western Europe

Huster admits that few people can predict how fast the water level will rise. But he pointed to a building across the valley, where the German Federal Civil Defence Office is located, where first responders from all over the country train for possible disasters.

“In practice, as we just saw, it didn’t work, let’s say, and it should be,” Huste said. “What the state should do, it didn’t do it. At least it won’t do that until a long time later,” he said.

On the first night of the flood, the local officials responsible for triggering the disaster alert in the Ahr Valley kept a low profile in the days after the flood. At least 132 people died in the Ahr Valley alone.

Rhineland-Palatinate authorities are responsible for disaster relief after the flood, but they declined Friday to comment on possible mistakes that may be made during the night disaster.

“What people see here is a ruin. Some people have lost their loved ones, and many have died,” said Thomas Linnertz, a state official who is now in charge of coordinating disaster relief efforts. “I can understand this anger very well. But on the other hand, I have to say it again: this is an event that no one could have expected.”

Armin Schuster, the head of the German federal disaster agency BKK, admitted to the public broadcaster ARD this week that “things are not as good as they should be.”

His agency is trying to determine how many alarms were removed after the end of the Cold War, and the country plans to adopt a system called “cell broadcast” that can send alarms to all mobile phones in a specific area.

In Sinzig town, resident Heiko Lemke recalled how firefighters knocked on the door at 2 am, when the flood had already caused serious damage upstream of Ahrweiler.

1:50Western Europe was hit by heavy rains and floods

Lemke said that despite the flooding in 2016, no one expected that the water level in Ahr would be as high as in his community last week.

“They are evacuating people,” he said. “We are completely confused because we think it is impossible.”

He said that within 20 minutes, water flooded the bottom of his house, but they thought it was too dangerous to venture out.

“We can’t succeed around the corner,” his wife Daniela Lemke said.

Twelve residents of nearby assisted living facilities for the disabled drowned in the flood.

The police are investigating whether the staff at the facility can do more to save residents, but so far, there is no indication that the authorities may face criminal investigations for failing to issue warnings in time.

Experts said that due to climate change, such floods will become more frequent and severe, and countries need to make adjustments, including revising the calculation of future flood risks, improving early warning systems, and preparing people for similar disasters.

Now that he knows the flood risk, Heiko Lemke hopes these things happen.

“But maybe it would be better to leave,” he said.