Floods in Austria: Caritas boss on solidarity in the crisis

interview

Caritas boss on the flood
“I have never experienced anything like this before”

The floods have hit Lower Austria and Vienna particularly hard. Caritas boss Klaus Schwertner talks about how the disaster is being dealt with – and what it means for the parliamentary elections.

Mr Schwertner, things are slowly improving Flood-Situation in eastern Austria. How have you experienced the past few days?
I live Even in Lower Austria, I experienced the floods in 2002 and 2013. This time it was different in many ways, some regions were more severely affected than ever before. I have certainly never experienced anything like this before. It was the smallest tributaries of the Danube that turned into raging masses of water in a matter of hours. Thanks to the protective measures that were taken after 2002, worse was prevented.

What does this mean for an organization like the Charity?
Above all, it is difficult to maintain mobile care when access to houses and entire settlements is blocked. We had a care home that was completely cut off from the outside world, and staff were constantly on duty to care for those in need of care and people with disabilities. The true extent of this disaster will only become apparent in the next few days. We are concerned that when temperatures rise and the snow melts in the west, another wave will be imminent. In the past few days, however, it has helped that not all of the precipitation has come down in the form of rain, but has remained as snow.

You launched a campaign called “for each other” that organizes neighborhood help. How did that work?
We started this initiative during the Corona pandemic, for each other is now Austria’s largest community for humanity and solidarity. Around 39,000 people are currently registered and have helped in various crisis situations over the past few years. Unbelievable. Whether as emergency aid for food distribution, food sorting, where it was about accompanying lonely people and being there for them. Or in our chat network, where you can talk to people who have no one to talk to by cell phone. But their big test was passed after the many refugees from the Russian war of aggression arrived and they were accompanied by Austrians from the very beginning.

Does it even make sense to use ordinary citizens during a crisis?
Not on our own, of course. We coordinate volunteers with the communities. And here too, the chat network is active, where older people who are stuck in their homes have someone to talk to. However, the authorities had called for people to stay at home after public transport in Vienna also came to a standstill. We also called for people not to drive into the affected areas under any circumstances. As soon as the water levels drop and the full extent of the damage becomes visible, we will be in demand and then the willingness to help will require a lot of patience.

Even if the current Election campaign paused briefly, the party leading in the polls denied that there were any effects of climate change. How do you assess this?
The former mayor of Vienna has spoken of election campaigns as phases of compressed unintelligence. The We have been experiencing populism, division and a similar polarization for weeks now, as you have just seen in the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. But there is little sign of this in the emergency situation, which I find respectable at least. There is an incredible sense of solidarity across the parties, across society, everyone is helping each other.

But that wasn’t the question.
I find it difficult to use every exceptional weather event as evidence of climate change. But when 364 litres of rain fall per square metre, it is clear that this must be seen in the context of the climate crisis. I was in South Sudan as a Caritas representative, and there they couldn’t find a single person who would even doubt climate change because everyone is affected by the effects in some way. When I returned to Austria, I kept thinking that there are still people here who generally question this climate crisis, even though we here in Austria and Europe are feeling the effects more and more – with corresponding weather, extreme heat waves and even storm disasters.

Will the flood disaster influence the outcome of the parliamentary elections?
As I said, the election campaign is suspended so as not to hinder disaster relief efforts. But of course it will be an issue on September 29th when people go to the polls.