A Country Races to Prepare for the Unavoidable

[marmar]

A Country Races to Prepare for the Unavoidable
Floods, storms, forest fires – events that used to be extreme have become the new normal. Now German officials are building dikes, underground storage tanks and green roofs to avert disaster. Will it be enough?

By Markus Dettmer, Jan Friedmann, Annette Großbongardt, Dietmar Hipp, Philipp Kollenbroich, Ann-Katrin Müller, Christopher Piltz, Hilmar Schmundt und Steffen Winter
29.07.2021, 08.38 Uhr


(Der Spiegel) They were prepared. Several years ago, in 2014, the hospital management had an expert report prepared at the request of the City of Leverkusen. The aim was to clarify whether the hospital was protected from flooding. Its buildings are located right next to the Dhünn River, which winds around the clinic grounds, a gentle 40-centimeter (16-inch) deep body of water in normal times.

The hospital’s technical rooms are located 12 meters (around 40 feet) from the edge of the river. They house the control center for the normal power source, as well as the emergency power. The specialist recommended installing sheet pile walls, just in case. That were fitted, and everyone was satisfied.

The expert’s report claimed that the hospital was protected and argued that it would hold up even during a massive flood. In other words, that it would be safe in the event the water reached a level that statistically only occur once every 100 years. Those were the city’s specifications.

Shortly after 7 p.m. on the evening of July 11, the water began spilling over the banks of the Dhünn. At 7:12 p.m., water sloshed over the street. The heavy rain had caused the Dhünn to rise almost 3 meters. The rooms in the hospital’s basement and its underground parking garage filled up. The water flooded corridors as well as the technical rooms. Around 10 p.m., the electricity went out. The emergency supply took over, but the responders were afraid it might go out as well.

....(snip)....

They have been warning about increasing extreme weather events for years. Meteorologists recorded 2018 as the warmest year in Germany since weather records began in 1881 – followed closely by 2020, 2014 and 2019. Droughts are on the rise, as is heavy rainfall. Things that used to be considered extreme are now deemed normal. ...........(more)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-new-climate-reality-a-country-races-to-prepare-for-the-unavoidable-a-314326ec-2015-401e-bd00-9e20436034a7

[hunter]

1. Rain hazard maps were not published because it might impact property values...

That pretty much says it all.

That's why we ignore global warming.

Our high energy industrial consumer economy refuses to recognize that continued fossil fuel use will be the ultimate destroyer of "property values."

Germany exemplifies a failed approach to eliminating fossil fuel use.

It does no good to cut fossil fuel use by half if you double the time you will be dependent on fossil fuels. Ultimately the same amount of fossil fuels are burned and the same damage is done to the natural environment.