Serious flooding

[Bondbug 32]

I hear of very serious flooding in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia (or whatever the current names is). A 1 in 100years flood.

Just checking to see if all is OK with Chattius area?

[chattius 2,536]

I live in the low mountain range mid in germany.

Our district build some water storage areas the last years. It is mainly grasland at rivers. So all what we had in my area was that the animals from these areas had to be moved uphill. Currently we have like 300 cows with calves from a farmer downhill on the fields around our house. Water levels are already dropping and we exspect that the animals can be moved down again end of this week.

Our local THW group (was called for help at New Orleans at the hurricane) was on high readiness for its pumping and damm units. A possible flooding of a town with a nuclear powerplant. Nuclear power plant was always save, but the houses of its workers were not. The stored damm material at our local group is almost used up my transporting it to south germany. The pump unit will move if a damm is breaking.

THW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technisches_Hilfswerk

East and south germany have a one in a century scenario. As have the neighbour countries their. Rivers are closed for ships.

[gogoblender 3,073]

I'm hoping for the best for you Chattius and community. Thanks Bond for heads up.

 

Chattius, is floods like this already costly?

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,536]

Even the not flooded areas suffer. Ground is so wet and soft that harvest of strawberries or vegs is impossible with machines. Not even that the crop is rotting, farmers can't do new plants as long the ground is to swampy for machines. Lot of rain is always a high risc of fungoid diseases on corn.

No shipping, so more transports with trucks = higher costs of transport = higher prices at markets, fuel station.

Lot of dead nestlings of insect eating birds around our house, stall and barns: barn swallows, common house martins, common swifts, ...

At work we place maggots at known feeding places of bats. They breed in the bunker we use to store explosives.

 

South germany:

The town which was most in news today is Passau. It has 3 rivers joining in the town and all 3 rivers had high water. Worst flooding for the last 500 years.

 

[gogoblender 3,073]

Very informative. I love to hear experienced reports (yours) on how everything like this is connected in the world. We can sometimes lose sight.

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,536]

A fifth of the technical equipment of the volunteer firefighters in our district built a convoy of 23 trucks and moved to the flooded areas. So the whole emergency plans of our district had to be reworked to guarantee minimal response times with less local trucks. Since I am a part of the group which does the plans I have to stay in case our district has an emergency.

TV was showing several convoys on Autobahns: red firefighters, blue THW (technical help organisation), white Red Cross ones. People were refreshed about the street laws for convoys.

 

 

Leading car and follow up cars have a blue flag, last car of the convoy has a green flag. A convoy counts as one vehicle. If the leading car passes a traffic light at green the whole convoy can pass. You are not allowed to drive through 2 cars with flags. Yellow flags mark damaged cars.

[Bondbug 32]

Nasty. You lead a very active life my friend. But I suppose that, as with most flooding, it is the aftermath that causes the worst problems.

I remember Claire reporting on the flooding in the north of England a year or two back.

We get flooding on the Loire at the confluence with other major rivers, but though it looks as bad as your photo of Passau, it is not on such a grand scale, and our little village is above it all - unless the global warming brings back the ancient sea of Falun which almost touched our village - long, long time ago.

You will be busy for a longtime after the flood goes down. Good luck.

[gogoblender 3,073]

A fifth of the technical equipment of the volunteer firefighters in our district built a convoy of 23 trucks and moved to the flooded areas. So the whole emergency plans of our district had to be reworked to guarantee minimal response times with less local trucks. Since I am a part of the group which does the plans I have to stay in case our district has an emergency.

TV was showing several convoys on Autobahns: red firefighters, blue THW (technical help organisation), white Red Cross ones. People were refreshed about the street laws for convoys.

 

 

Leading car and follow up cars have a blue flag, last car of the convoy has a green flag. A convoy counts as one vehicle. If the leading car passes a traffic light at green the whole convoy can pass. You are not allowed to drive through 2 cars with flags. Yellow flags mark damaged cars.

Complex rules for the convoy! All drivers know this?

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,536]

Isn't over yet, new rain and damm's are softened already. Add that either idiots or a terror group mailed government that they will damage damm's- So now extra people needed to guard the damms.

 

At our place:

Cows still around. Valley is full of mosquitos because of water pits not dried out yet but sun shining. This morning a helicopter dropped an biological insectoid made into pellets by deepfreezing in liquid nitrogen.

[chattius 2,536]

At our place:

Cows are back downhill, Friday was bloodspending with everyone in the family old enough to do at our firefighters building.

 

At east germany an attempt to close a broken damm by sinking ships at the place seemed to work.

[Thorin Oakshield 260]

If not mistaken a group of Dutch engineers went to Germany after the flooding 11 years ago. They made quite some recommendations about how to improve the dykes to prevent something like this happening. Now I'm wondering what happened to those recommendations, as I somehow got the feeling some of the flooding could have been prevented.

 

I do know several Dutch teams are send to Germany to help. Must be both our blessing and our curse; the moment some serious natural flooding happens somewhere, we're called for to help.

 

And to a side-note: Anyone seen the title when checking for new content?

I know this is a serious subject, but when seeing "Serious Flooding in Key Largo Beach Resort", I wonder who's tap has sprung this time.

 

 

 

Thorin

[chattius 2,536]

The problem are politics and a one in a thousand years scenario:

 

Everyone upriver is trying to get rid of the water as quick as possible. And so it affects 4 countries and not just germany. And the decisions have to be multinational.

 

12 years ago I was in a demolition team to destroy damms after the flood peak was over. So the water could flow away quicker. Was a lot of maths to prevent a summing up of waves of different small rivers in the big river.

 

 

This picture shows from which areas the big rivers get the water: The Elbe has a big area and is not just germany. My grandgrandpa was wise enough to build uphill at a Wasserscheide (river drainage divide), so our local area has 3 possibilities to get the water away.

[Bondbug 32]

Seems we have serious flooding in France now - but I have no pics as yet. All I have seen in our village was flooding caused by overloading of road drainage system ... and of course my camera had flat batteries. We are reasonably high above the main rivers here. We had a flash storm but not as bad as elsewhere. Will try to get some news pics.

[chattius 2,536]

We had 36C in the shadows last 2 days so the outcome was to be exspected:

We had rain and hail hammering at the house - mid in a lightning storm around midnight. So our bed was suddenly over full of kids.

Since the rain was arriving from france the clouds had released already some water when climbing the lower mountains west, so no flooding in the neighbour villages down in the valleys. But there have been areas with 55litres water by square metre in a single hour a bit farer away.

At least my ponds and the fountain have enough water now.

[Bondbug 32]

Been trying to download pics of France floods - plenty on web .... but as usual I have forgotten how to do it!

Good photos of the shrine at Lourdes, a flooded camp site in the south, and parked large vehicles.

 

[chattius 2,536]

Our cow-dog Runi was in her element when the cows were brought back downhill. Runi is short for Runhild, which is from the ancient germanic words Run=secret/knowledfe and Hild= battle/fighting.

She belongs to the endangered race of Siegerländer Kuhhunde (cow-dogs from the Siegerland area) and only around 140 still exist. More agile and robust than a normal german shepherd, the race is smaller. The race was mentioned in old documents reaching back more than 600 years. They were breeded for cleverness and agility in an area were wolves were almost extincted so size didn't matter that much. They were used to control cows in a woodland and hilly area where the cows where mainly feeding between bushes and trees.

 

German wiki with pictures:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuhhund

english wiki which mentions the race but no picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_German_Herding_Dogs

 

This video is showing a Westerwälder Kuhhund at work. The race is a close relative. Westerwälder cowdogs were breeded to bring a herde of cows from one field to another in hilly and bush terrain.

 

Cow-dogs had a small comeback recently since they are very good to control cows with calves. Mother-cows can be very aggressive and the dogs are agile enough to evade.

[Bondbug 32]

Not a breed I recognise, and pity the English wiki is concentrated on sheep dogs. Good to see an old breed being brought back into use. Will send link to vet daughter in Canada

[chattius 2,536]

We got our Runi from a nearby farmer whose youngest boy turned out allergic to dogs. So if he needs Runi for working he phones and the dog can run the 3 miles alone. If not for cows ,Runi is ecellent at catching frisbees.

 

Old german races:

http://www.herdingontheweb.com/english.htm

The cow-dogs

www.herdingontheweb.com/kuhhund.htm

[wolfie2kX 528]

Our cow-dog Runi was in her element when the cows were brought back downhill. Runi is short for Runhild, which is from the ancient germanic words Run=secret/knowledfe and Hild= battle/fighting.

She belongs to the endangered race of Siegerländer Kuhhunde (cow-dogs from the Siegerland area) and only around 140 still exist. More agile and robust than a normal german shepherd, the race is smaller. The race was mentioned in old documents reaching back more than 600 years. They were breeded for cleverness and agility in an area were wolves were almost extincted so size didn't matter that much. They were used to control cows in a woodland and hilly area where the cows where mainly feeding between bushes and trees.

 

Sounds a bit like the sort of thinking that went into making the top dog in the UK - I speak of the Queen's pets - the Welsh Corgi (both varieties). Low slung dogs that can dodge kicks from cattle with relative ease but are clever enough to keep the herd of cows moving. Of course, having the Queen's attention makes it so the Corgi are in no danger of becoming extinct at this time.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Corgi

 

They too are an ancient breed.

[chattius 2,536]

Yes, but corgi are more open graslands. Too many boars here hiding in the forests, fear they are too short-legged. But I think every place used to have their optimal localized breeds. Our state has the most forest of all german states, andgermany has the most of alleuropean countries.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Probably so...

 

So that's why there's so many wild boar running loose on Ancaria.