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 By Jean-Philippe LACOUR Dernau, Germany (AFP) July 11, 2022
Nearly a year ago, pounding rain turned the River Ahr, a tributary of the Rhine in western Germany, into a torrent of water and mud that swept everything before it. For those who survived the deadly flood, life changed dramatically. Three of them spoke to AFP. - Solidarity - "My dog, my mobile phone and some T-shirts." That was all Anke Barteit, 57, managed to take with her as the waters rose. For the past year, Barteit has been living in a small wooden hut in a temporary village erected for flood victims until they can return to their homes. Her 30-square-metre (300-square foot) "tiny house" is located in a car park in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, one of the towns worst affected by the floods. Sitting on the terrace outside her makeshift home, Barteit counts her blessings as she looks out across the valley with its forests and lush vineyards. The floods unleashed an outpouring of solidarity in Germany, she says. Strangers she met on Facebook provided the cutlery, sheets, towels and other essential items for her new home. Barteit lives alone with her dog Buddy, who she says "saved her life" on the night of July 14. The Bichon Maltese woke her up by barking as the water began to pour into her home near the river Ahr. Barteit, who is recovering from lung cancer diagnosed in 2018, is hoping to return to her home in September, a moment she says will feel like a "dream come true". - Homeless and jobless - From her temporary office in a small portable cabin, Carina Dewald does the admin for the only petrol station in the village of Dernau. A year ago, Dewald, her husband, their seven-year-old son and her parents-in-law spent the night on the roof of their house before being airlifted to safety. When AFP met her a few days after the disaster, Dewald, now 40, described herself as "technically homeless and unemployed". The petrol station where she worked with her husband was razed to the ground, and her house was left uninhabitable as waters from the river Ahr rose to the window ledges on the first floor. Dewald and her husband "quickly took the decision... to get the station up and running again", helped by a 70,000-euro ($71,200) insurance payout, she says. An architect's drawing of the building that will eventually be their new office hangs on the wall. The Dewald family home is still being renovated after a long battle with their insurance company. Returning to live in the middle of a flood zone doesn't faze them, though Dewald is hoping the flood warning system will work better if it happens again. "We don't overthink things," she laughs. On July 14, 2021, the Dewalds' petrol station remained open until 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) -- less than three hours before torrents of water began sweeping through the town. - Mud-smeared wine bottles - In the cellars of Peter Kriechel's vineyard in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, the barrels are lined up, the steel vats are gleaming and everything is ready for the 2022 harvest. A tasting room next door is buzzing with visitors. It's a far cry from this time last year, when the cellar was completely filled with water. In the Ahr valley, known for the pinot noir that grows on its steep slopes, the economy relies significantly on wine production and the tourism it generates. After the floods, the region's winegrowers raised 4.5 million euros by selling 180,000 mud-smeared bottles of wine rescued from their cellars. "It helped us all enormously," says Kriechel, who wants to take the idea further by venturing "into the next dimension, the metaverse". A selection of remaining bottles numbered from 1 to 99 are still to be auctioned off -- including number 14, the day of the floods. That special bottle will be sold in the form of an NFT, a digital token that can be used to represent the ownership of unique items.
In western Germany, 'temporary' life a year after flood Around 18,000 inhabitants, or more than half the local population, were affected by the disaster in this once picturesque town in western Germany known for its thermal baths. The anniversary of the night of July 14, 2021 will be marked on Thursday with the visit of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The town mayor, Guido Orthen, will be able to show Scholz roads cleared of the muck and debris strewn by the flood waters that submerged the town. But a return to the way things were "will still take time", he says, with the rebuild very much a work in progress. "We still have temporary infrastructure, temporary playgrounds, temporary schools, temporary roads that make life possible," he says. None of the 18 bridges that used to cross the Ahr river is functional yet, with three temporary crossings installed in their place. - 'Disenchantment' - The traces of the flood are everywhere, from the collapsed banks by the roadside to the high-water mark on many of the buildings. While officials may want to rebuild things as quickly as possible, they are also under pressure to make sure residents are protected from future floods. As it stands, "we are still living in the same dangerous situation as a year ago", Orthen says, putting residents in a state of anxiety any time bad weather is forecast. In Germany, 185 people were killed in the disaster. The majority of the fatalities were in the Ahr valley, which winds along 40 kilometres (25 miles) to where the river joins the Rhine to the south of Bonn. Mayor Orthen is dismayed that protective measures to keep residents safe from future floods are subject to interminable bureaucratic discussions. In zones with high flood risk, the houses that have been destroyed are not permitted to be rebuilt, while those that were damaged can be repaired. Moreover, town officials face a mountain of paperwork, with Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler expected to submit 1,400 requests for reconstruction projects by the end of June 2023. "We won't be able to," Orthen says. Even with reinforcements, his staff is "exhausted". After a year of living in a "state of emergency", the elected official sees "disenchantment" and a "feeling of powerlessness" growing among his residents. Over 2,000 people have left Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in the last year. In the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, only 500 million euros ($506 million) in aid have been handed out of the total 15 billion euros set aside. The slow progress is an "affront to those affected", according to conservative state legislator Horst Gies, quoted in the General Anzeiger daily. In the neighbouring region of North Rhine-Westphalia, 1.6 billion euros of government support has been approved for use, out of a total of 12.3 billion euros. - 'We want to exist' - In the town of Sinzig, around 15 kilometres from Ahrweiler, candles have been lit in front of a former care home for the mentally disabled, where 12 residents lost their lives in the floods. The organisation that ran the establishment, Lebenshilfe, is still looking for a location to open a new facility. "Our discussions with the mayor's office and the local administration still haven't produced anything," says Ulrich van Bebber from Lebenshilfe. Frustration is building among those trying to rebuild their lives as promised help is slow to arrive. "We want to exist in the eyes of Germany," says Iris Muenn-Buschow, the ground floor of her home still in the middle of repair works. "We have the impression that everything else that goes on in the world is more important than what happens here in Germany," she says. With her husband, she has founded an organisation called "the Ahr valley stands up" ("das Ahrtal steht auf") which has organised a series of protests. "Nobody has forgotten the Ahr valley and the other regions," Rhineland-Palatinate state prime minister Malu Dreyer said recently, stressing the extent of the work still left to do.
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