Storms and floods cut power to thousands of households in the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Sunday and Monday and forced evacuations in several parts of the country. According to weather services and fire brigades, the flooding situation remained tense on Monday, especially on the Elbe and smaller northern Czech rivers near the borders with Saxony and Poland. A warning was issued of further erratic weather in Germany.
About 12,000 households in the Czech Republic were temporarily without electricity, including 3,700 on Monday. In Slovakia, the number of households without electricity rose from 7,000 on Sunday to 9,000 on Monday, TASR news agency reports. In Slovakia, important power lines also pass through difficult-to-access forest and mountain areas, where persistent snowstorms have hampered repair work. Fallen trees also blocked numerous roads and rail links in both countries.
The Czech fire brigade had to be deployed 2,000 times
In Mrakotin u Telce in South Bohemia, twenty houses had to be evacuated due to an impending dam failure. In other Czech regions, isolated houses outside city centers were also evacuated. On Saturday, the Czech fire brigade registered around 2,000 missions. Fallen trees and flooded basements were usually the cause.
Heavy snow, which then turned to rain, and a sharp rise in temperatures on Sunday, which caused snow to melt, also caused flooding in Slovakia. In the capital Bratislava, streets and parking lots near the banks of the Danube and March, as well as underpasses in the city center, were flooded. The weather service SHMU and the fire department said there is currently no serious danger to the residential areas of the city’s population.
Flood risk in Germany
Due to persistent heavy rain, authorities continued to warn of flooding in several parts of Germany on Christmas Day. The German weather service spoke on Monday of the “flood risk in many streams and rivers”, which was “in some cases significant”. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has issued storm surge warnings for Bremen and Hamburg.
According to the German weather service, heavy, persistent rain falls in many low mountains and heavy thaw in the Ore Mountains. Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and Saxony are particularly affected. The weather situation can also lead to flooded streets and landslides.
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) expected that the storm surge limit of 1.5 meters above mean high tide (MHW) would be clearly exceeded by two meters in Bremen in the early afternoon. In Hamburg, authorities assumed a level of 1.5 to 2 meters around 3 p.m. However, the BSH did not expect heavy storm surges. On the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony, values in Wilhelmshaven reportedly remained below the storm surge limit on Monday.
Source: Krone
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