Schuld, Germany: It only takes a few minutes for the residents of the prosperous corner of one of the richest countries in the world to be reduced to being helpless, fending themselves when flood water roared to the city of Schuld, destroying houses and everything they counted.
In parts of West Germany, more than 150 liters of rainwater per square meter fell more than 24 hours, causing calm rivers usually in beautiful wine-producing valleys to swell and explode their banks.
The Freak Floods tore houses, including plumbing and waste disposal, connecting disconnected electricity, cutting cellphone signals and leaving residents who are familiar with the luxury of advanced conditions that move full of friends and their neighbors.
“It’s so bad not to help people,” Frank Thel said.
“They waved on us from the window.
The houses fainted to their left and right and at home between them waved.
We are lucky, we survived.” Hermann Larscheid described how he had to pass his son from the window over his house when the water rises, before climbing himself.
Both managed to get into a flat roof where they were finally appointed with mechanical diggers.
“It’s all water, to the top,” he pointed to the wall three meters to the roof.
“If you have fallen, you will leave, it is a pressure from it.” The area, South Bonn, an ancient university city with 40 years of the Western German capital, is famous for the wine and the beauty of its tilted vineyards.
Now residents fend themselves after the flood, said Thel.
Although emergency services and troops have been deployed to the region, they have not made many dents on destruction.
“Cleaning as far as I see is a neighbor and farmer using their tractor,” Thel said.
Flood in 2002 Germany, where 21 died and which was billed by the media as “once-in-centuries”, now it has easily defeated.
More than 100 people are known to have died in Germany, and more than 1,000 are still lost, partly because the mobile network has collapsed in most areas.
WDR regional announcer faces criticism on Wednesday night because it struggles to notify the world about brewing disasters.
Mockery stopped when they explained why: their own studio in the area had been flooded.
The shock is easy to read on the face of residents who cannot believe how fast things are deteriorating.
When the waters rise on Wednesday, Michael Lang, a wine trader in the region was brought to Facebook to warn friends of the floods that would soon occur.
“I’ll be displaced now.
Take care of you,” he said, with the AHL river who roared in the background, still being arranged even though he was worried about being engraved on his face.
On Friday, standing on his broken village, that calm was gone.
“The whole infrastructure has passed,” he said, choked tears.
“Our house is still standing, but nothing else.”