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Location

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Austria

We are depending on a weather change in the following hours. I do not dare to imagine what will happen if it keeps on pouring down. Worst area in Austria at the moment is where I live. It`s already in the news here everywhere. You can check the pics in my diary. I have read it is similar in some parts of Bavaria. Hope noone of you has to face a situation like ours here.

8/23/2005 5:59:35 AM

Esneux / Liège / BELGIUM

We all hope that it will get better very soon.
Take courage.


Sophie

8/23/2005 6:26:32 AM

Knopp, Germany

Heino, I hope that things go well. Forget the patch, take care of yourself.

owen

8/23/2005 7:27:32 AM

Cologne / Germany

I really hope it will stop raining for you, be safe and take care! Like Owen said, in a situation like that a patch is not really important anymore.
Our best wishes from here go out to you in Austria, Switzerland and Bavaria! And I thought PM would be a problem.

8/23/2005 7:36:07 AM

Hilpoltstein, Bavaria, Germany

Heino, I was just thinking about you last night when I saw the pictures from Switzerland and Austria in the news. Then, this morning, I saw your diary pics... I sure hope that dam holds!!! Take care of yourself and keep in mind that your pumpkin is not yet big enough to use it as a boat! LOL
I could imagine that Peter has lots of rain as well.... news says that "Schwaben" also had lots of rain.
We have had 104 litres of rain here in the last 3 days and it's still coming down strong....

8/23/2005 8:00:41 AM

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Heino, that looks scary... at least in Slovenia the floods are over now.

8/23/2005 9:12:51 AM

Loitsche/Sachsen-Anhalt/Germany

Heino, ich hoffe, dass Du und Deine Lieben von dem Unwetter verschont bleibst. Das gleiche wünsche ich natürlich allen anderen, die von der Sinflut betroffen sind.

8/23/2005 1:47:40 PM

Leamington, Ont.

I seen it on Canadian news today...Hope everyone is safe!

8/23/2005 11:03:58 PM

Germany (Kirchheim / Bavaria)

Martin, I`ll post pics in my diary later, as soon as I have time, but before that, I have to remove the water from my patch and not to water my patch. On monday it rained around 100 litres in 3 hours (not 3 days). But today (Wednesday) it looks mutch better.

8/24/2005 3:26:08 AM

Austria

Hello all!

Thank you for all the nice words and support. First of all, rain has stopped yesterday evening and the situation has already improved really fast.

Our basement was sure flooded but we managed to get the water out by yesterday afternoon, nothing to mention. Everybody is fine in our village and neighbour villages. Still there are friends in other areas with still no electricity and drinking water has to be cooked.

This time the smaller valleys here with little creeks turning into rivers within hours have been struck hardest here in Vorarlberg and Tyrol, also towns in Bavaria as Kempten or Immenstadt and quite a lot of places in near Switzerland. My thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost friends or relatives or their homes. There are several villages in our county where the water has destroyed main roads and railways completely, houses torn apart etc.

As I wrote in my diary the patch would have been my smallest worry, if the outer Rhine Dam would not have hold. Just imagine this mid-sized river turning into something in Nile-dimension within a day. Still in our smaller valleys creeks caused real damage in the infrastructure and tore houses down completely. This water from a very big area gathered mostly into the Rhine which flows into Lake Constance right here in Fussach. People grown up here are kind of used to it and I remember as a kid enjoying to make part of the way to the school even by boat sometimes. Still we have no illusions what will happen if the dam would not hold with the Rhine being at 8 meters and more. We were not far from evacuation yesterday, but are fine now.

8/24/2005 3:40:33 AM

Buren Ameland,West Frisian Islands, Netherlands

Heino,
Thank God, things did not get worse, and your home area is safe now.
So much rain as you got is extraordinary, happily not as much as West Maharastra got last month (allmost 1000mm).

How did the pumpkins survive? Do any of them reach 100Kg now?

8/24/2005 2:12:36 PM

Austria

Thanks Theo,

We have an all or nothing situation here where the Rhine meets Lake Constance, many creeks nad rivers flow into the Rhine before, which is sort of drainage for our state here. We have a big foreland with 2 dams on each side side of the river. Now this was close, because what you saw on the left of the pics in my diary was the outer dam. It is shows to be not high enough or breaks, the pumpkin patch will we gone together with the new fixed boat and probably the house. As long as the dam holds there`s even no problem with the patch. I guess Peter Frei has more water in the patch than I have. We were really lucky that the lake had an unusual low level and took all of that water with little problem. It makes me optimistic that this dam held though this was a century flood. In 1999 it broke 1.5 km down from where our house is and hit a restaurant (no other buildings there) which was then gone. The dam has been built up again, even slightly stronger and seems to hold. I`m really glad. But there are people who really need help. I`ve seen that in the Czech Rebublic poeple have also been struck very hard. The media here seems to concentrate on Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria though. It really is not that important for sure but I can tell you my growing season goes on well and was not even affected. My biggest on the 826 should have way over 100 kg. I don`t like measuring when the soil is that compacted. Maybe I will measure next weekend.

8/25/2005 3:33:04 AM

Buren Ameland,West Frisian Islands, Netherlands

Heino,
it seems we go more or less at the same weight, I estimated 103 and 114 kg today. Iwan in Leerdam NL had a few days ago around 110 kg. Our pumpkins are not that heavy, but they might reach 200kg in october?!

Last night we got only 12mm rain, I hope weather improves soon, we got some sunshine this afternoon, but a small hailstorm too.

8/25/2005 4:36:46 PM

Austria

Yes theo, seems have competition on our own - lol. Seems like had some problems with measuring yesterday because the result is 30 kg less than last time. I hope I made the measuring mistake yesterday and not the time before ;-) Will have to repeat in the next days.

8/26/2005 7:14:34 AM