FactualA year after the floods that mourned western Germany, the inhabitants and local elected officials are tired of the slow pace of administrative procedures and reconstruction.
A piece of land surrounded by marker tape: “Here was the pizzeria. » On the other side of the street, a pile of rubble: “That was the bakery. » A hundred meters further, a gravel esplanade, where two garbage dumpsters, a food truck and a construction arbor are enthroned. “There, you have to imagine pretty gardens and tall trees”explains Christina Müller-Lettau, a resident of Schuld, one of the municipalities most affected by the floods which hit western Germany on July 14, 2021, causing the death of 185 people.
Christina Müller-Lettau is one of those lucky ones. Located on the side of a hill, his house was spared by the flooding of the Ahr, this tributary of the Rhine that the torrential rains of July 2021 caused to rise several meters in a few hours and which, in Schuld alone, engulfed nearly 140 houses, many of which remain unoccupied today. “Here, fortunately, no one died, but the village did not come back to life”sums up this 60-year-old civil servant who, after the disaster, decided to work only part-time in Bonn – the city is located a good half-hour away – to devote the rest of her time to reconstruction. of Schuld.
And it is not the activity that is lacking. “It never stops. On the one hand, there are individuals who need help in their dealings with insurance companies or administrations. On the other hand, there is the restoration of the infrastructures, starting with the bridge which connected the two parts of the village and for the reconstruction of which we are still waiting for expertise before being able to call on contractors to start work.explains Christina Müller-Lettau, who, “at the rate things are going”think that it will still take “at least two or three years” before a new bridge replaces the one that was washed away by the Ahr flood.
From “postcard decor” to “hellish landscape”
About twenty kilometers away, Alfred Sebastian, too, does not hide his impatience. Mayor of Dernau, a town of 1,800 inhabitants located a little lower in the Ahr valley, he now has his office in a prefab, while waiting for the former headquarters of the municipal administration, devastated by the floods, be usable again. In this town, eleven people perished in the disaster, to which must be added two suicides, including that of the dean of the village, 96 years old, who could not bear the shock.
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