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“I woke up at four in the morning. I heard the sound of the river slowly approaching. I went outside the cottage and there was about thirty centimeters of water in the garden. By the time I got dressed, packed, and took my luggage, it was waist deep. It went up so quickly,” says 76-year-old Pavel Liška. He is sitting in the Sokol gymnasium in Mikulovice near Jeseník. The office has set up an evacuation center here.
“I stripped down to my boxers and went outside. It was dark everywhere, I was holding on to the fence. The water was awfully cold, brrrr. Terror. Rage,” describes the senior.
“When I was dry, I threw the boxers into the river and changed. Until seven in the morning, I beat myself up against the cold and waited outside under the gazebo for my friend’s window to light up, wake up and take me in,” Pavel Liška points towards the block of flats.
What did you even manage to pack? “Medicine, cell phone, money, socks, some clothes, food, but I also got insurance, so a mug, coffee, spoon and sugar. To be sure,” she laughs, clearly in a good mood, even if she doesn’t really have a reason to be.
Photo: Jan Novák, Seznam Správy
Pavel Liška temporarily found accommodation in Mikulov’s falconry.
In conclusion, Pavel Liška admits that he caused it to some extent himself. The municipality had already warned him yesterday not to stay in the garden cabin. “They joked that the helicopter wouldn’t come for me, but I risked it anyway. That’s all me,” he says mischievously. In the end, he’s glad he woke up at four in the morning. “I was really lucky,” he says.
There are twelve garden houses in the cottage area, where it is the only one that stays even through the winter. When he left, five of them were flooded.
Floods: Current situation in the Czech Republic
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“We’ll have to manage everything again”
Sixty-six-year-old Marie Antonínová is huddled next to her. She is cold, she is tired and, unlike Pavel Liška, she is not very good at laughing. His house is right next to the river, apparently not far from the fire station.
“When the river fills up, the water goes through my basement. Well, at nine o’clock I looked to see that there was water up to the ceiling. There was a piece like this missing,” and shows about ten centimeters between his fingers. The cellar is said to be 2.5 meters deep. “So I pulled myself together and went to the falconry,” she shrugs.
Behind her hangs a backpack, a jacket, and next to her a wand. “I have the essentials. Clothes, documents, money, drink, mobile phone, charger,” he enumerates.
Photo: Jan Novák, Seznam Správy
Maria Antonínová’s entire basement was flooded by water.
“I’m afraid of when the water recedes. We will have to knock on everything again, clean it and manage it again,” fears Marie Antonínová.
Did she at least manage to pull something up? “I’m alone in the barracks. My son was not released from work, so I took out only the most necessary things that I had the strength for. Nothing more. Otherwise, I had to leave it there,” she states and goes to ask if she could stretch out on the folding deckchair somewhere.
Problem tributaries
As of Saturday afternoon, Mikulovice was the most affected municipality in Jeseníky so far. The biggest damage there has not yet been caused by the Bělá River, but mainly by its flooded tributaries. However, Bělá also reached an extreme flood level in the afternoon, and the town hall called on the residents of several flood-threatened streets to evacuate quickly.
On the edge of the village near the bypass, the water flooded the access road, garages and rose several tens of centimeters.
A man in a camouflage cloak is standing by one of the family’s houses and says into the phone that it’s “to hell”. When they do, he reveals that he came to look at a property belonging to his wife’s cousin.
“They left earlier this morning and the water wasn’t here yet,” he says, pointing to the garden. Now there is at least twenty to thirty centimeters of water. “The cellar must surely be under water by now. It’s sad. I don’t know what else to say about it,” he doesn’t want to think too much and rides away on his bike, drenched.
Photo: Jan Novák, Seznam Správy
Water at a height of several tens of centimeters spilled into gardens and houses.
At the house next door, sixty-eight-year-old Jan Benača pumps out groundwater.
“I’ve experienced a lot of flooding here. I don’t know what will happen overnight, but hopefully it won’t be as hell as in 97. There was knee-deep water everywhere, and one big lake had formed. Like on a stormy sea,” recalls the vital senior. “Soldiers used to ride boats here and rescue. Really hell, what remained was a lunar landscape,” he adds.
A young woman looks out the window.
“That’s the daughter, she came from Brno for us, that if I needed help with my wife. I told her, please don’t go, but we’re glad she’s here,” he waves back at her.
According to forecasts, the situation in Mikulovice may be comparable to that of twenty-seven years ago. It can even be worse. However, Jan Benač and his family are not going to evacuate just yet. They said they managed it in 1997 – and they had nine children, whom they took to their mother-in-law – they say they can do it now. “We have a car here. When it’s worst, we’ll leave,” he shrugs. And it’s quite pointlessly pumping water around the barracks while it’s raining harder and harder.
Reporter Jan Novák follows the floods in other places in Jeseníky. See where he’s been:
UPDATE: We have added information about the call to evacuate several threatened streets.
