In the afternoon, the fire brigade recovered a man dead from a van in the flooded underpass near Saulgrub. He drowned in the driver’s cab, according to the fire department. It’s the driver, police said.
Cars surprised and trapped by masses of water
The federal highway 23 runs on this section in the Oberland for several hundred meters in a depression surrounded by concrete walls. There, several drivers were surprised by the masses of water on the road late Thursday evening. Two cars and the pickup truck stopped and were surrounded by muddy cloudy rainwater.
Call for help by mobile phone to Poland
After initial investigations, a police spokesman assumed that a traffic light in front of the valley was probably red, but the driver of the small truck drove on anyway. Apparently he asked for help on his cell phone: The police in Poland received an emergency call from a man who said he had problems after heavy rain. The officials assume that this emergency call came from the man from the pickup truck. His body was recovered by lifeguards on Friday afternoon using a rubber dinghy. It is probably the first storm death this year in Bavaria.
Cars are recovered
The fire brigade forces are in the process of getting the third and last vehicle out of the water masses. A lifeguard boat was used to get to the vehicle. Two cars were taken out of the flooded underpass in the morning.
Driver rescued from dire need
A car driver was luckier: a firefighter saved her in dire straits. As the water rose rapidly, the woman had fled onto the roof of her car. Shortly before the car went under in the water masses, a fireman saved her with a ladder, as a police spokesman said. The woman appeared unharmed.
Firefighter nearly died
The storm almost cost the life of a firefighter: The rescuer was on his way to the equipment house to drive from there to the B23. While driving, two trees fell on the man’s private car, as the police spokesman said. Luckily the man was uninjured although the car was totaled.
Underpass flooded up to eight meters
The underpass was flooded up to eight meters high. According to the latest information, the emergency services assumed no further deaths.
During the night, divers tried to swim into the tunnel and search for people and vehicles in the water. But because of the darkness this was not possible. The search continued on Friday morning.
During the night, the fire brigade had brought a man from the roof of his car to safety. Last night’s storm hit Bad Bayersoien, Bad Kohlgrub, Altenau and Saulgrub in particular. The fire brigade reported around 50 missions.
With the storm in the night one could certainly speak of an event of the century because an enormous amount of water had accumulated in a short time.
Cause of flooding still unclear
Last night, the storm hit Bad Bayersoien, Bad Kohlgrub, Altenau and Saulgrub in particular. The fire brigade reported around 50 missions. Why the water could not drain in the underpass cannot be clarified at the moment.
Fire brigade commander Georg Sporer Junior names the combination of hail and heavy rain as a possible cause. These could have clogged the inlet shafts for the two pumps. Even the state road construction authority Weilheim has no indication of the cause. A spokesman told BR that the pumps were checked regularly.
The fire brigade suspects that the large amount of hail could have blocked the inlet shafts for the pump. Christoph Prause from the state building authority in Weilheim considers this theory to be unlikely. The pumps should therefore work independently of the inlets and also pump out the water if the inlets are blocked. It is important to clarify when the pumps started, whether they had a defect or were overwhelmed with the amount of water. It is conceivable that the system failed technically or was underdesigned, Prause continued.
Further rain possible south of the Danube
For the weekend, the German Weather Service expects changeable weather in southern Bavaria. South of the Danube, there could be heavy showers and prolonged rainfall until Sunday, a spokesman said.
This is due to a low spur over the west of the Free State and a low over northern Italy. In Franconia and the Upper Palatinate, on the other hand, people can expect a dry and partly sunny weekend – and with pleasant temperatures of up to 22 degrees.