Status: 07/19/2021 2:59 a.m.
In the Ahr Valley, the clean-up work is in full swing after the flood of the century – and the sun is shining again. However, those affected are only just beginning to come to terms with the horrors of the flood night.
Houses swept away by the floods, mountains of rubbish and broken furniture on the muddy streets, soldiers, firefighters and rescue workers in the smallest villages, helicopters looking for the injured and dead from the air. All of this has been part of everyday life in the Ahr Valley since the middle of last week. And yet it is still difficult to bear.
Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks of a “ghostly situation” after her visit to the community of Schuld. What she saw is terrifying: “I almost want to say that the German language hardly knows any words for the devastation that has been wrought.” According to initial estimates, the flood alone caused damage of up to 48 million euros in the municipality of Schuld with its 700 inhabitants.
Exhaustion spreads
The people in the affected areas are fighting tirelessly against the enormous masses of mud – while in the main streets, among other things, tanks of the Bundeswehr help with clearing, in the side streets and gardens excavators and tractors are used in many places.
Now that the sun is shining and it’s warmer, fighting the mud is getting tougher. Once dry, it can hardly be shoveled away, so in many places it is watered before it is taken away. On the other hand, there is still no running water in many municipalities. But that is not the only thing that makes the work of the flood victims increasingly difficult. The physical and mental exertion of days is noticeable. Many have barely slept since Wednesday last week. If they did, then no good.
Somehow it has to go on
Walter Pürling lives on the banks of the Ahr in the Eifel community of Insul, which is also badly affected. The 57-year-old is tall, he looks like nothing can shake him. But the impression is deceptive. Pürling says he is now often really depressed. At the beginning he worked like a machine, but under shock he started to clear his house of water and mud. The work helped him not to despair. But now he was coming up more and more often about what had happened there. And that is almost unbearable. More and more often he was wondering how he was going to manage all this at all. But despair doesn’t bring anything either, he encourages himself, somehow it has to go on.
Walter Pürling during the clean-up work
Always saved for the house
Petra Gründler also says to herself that things have to go on. But the 51-year-old doesn’t yet know exactly how that should work with moving on. With tears and a trembling voice, she reports that the flood destroyed her life’s work and that of her husband.
They would have saved decades, not allowed themselves a vacation, invested every penny in the house, for example in a beautiful facade. Only two weeks ago she and her husband had said to each other that the hard times were over now, that you could even take a vacation. And now, after just one night, they would have less than ever, left with nothing.
Fear of death in the night of the flood
And then Petra Gründler tells the story of the flood night rather casually. The masses of water would have prevented them from escaping through the door from their flooded house. She asked her son to leave her behind, the most important thing was that he survived. After some back and forth, however, they would have managed to get outside together via a ladder. The idea: we save ourselves to the highest point in town, the bridge over the Ahr. But it was precisely this bridge that was destroyed by the water just a short time later. Gradually, more and more stones crumbled off. Mother and son were surrounded by water, not knowing how long it would be before the floods bury them. Both were scared to death. They were not saved until the next morning.
Today Petra Gründler says: “If I hadn’t had my son, I would have gone to the Ahr voluntarily.” She is ashamed that she did not manage to be strong for her child. She still hopes this is all just a bad dream. “Pinch me and let me wake up!” She pleaded more than once in her mind.
Seeing distress and not being able to help
While Petra Gründler is telling all this, her neighbor Wilfried Kasper takes her comforting arms around her. He had to watch everything from his house, he saw and heard the panic of mother and son. And yet couldn’t help. In the torrential floods he would have perished himself, he could not call for help, and at this point in time there was no telephone or cell phone reception. To see his neighbor’s fear of death and not be able to do anything, even that is hard to bear for Wilfried Kasper days after the fateful night.
The neighbors Petra Gründler and Wilfried Kasper stick together in times of need.
Great willingness to help
During conversations with people in the destroyed villages in the Ahr Valley, tears flow again and again these days. Tears of exhaustion, sadness, helplessness. But also of emotion and gratitude. Because the disaster also triggered an unbelievable willingness to help.
Money and donations in kind are sent to the Eifel from all over Europe, hotels in the region allow flood victims to stay overnight free of charge, volunteers in rubber boots come with wheelbarrows and shovels to the destroyed villages and lend a hand where help is needed. For example in Manuela Göken’s house and garden. The insulator in the green work dungarees said that on the weekend, complete strangers suddenly stood next to her and asked: “What can we do?” While Manuela Göken is telling this, her voice breaks. She can’t believe that people whose names she doesn’t even know are giving her such selfless help. She also has to deal with that first. Joy and sorrow, they are currently very close to one another in the flood areas.