If you draw a line between Koblenz and Aachen, Germany....this valley lies near the middle, and the Ahr River runs through it. The Ahr, for the record, feeds the Rhine. Most of the 'river' is about 50 to 100 feet across. In normal flood conditions....it might stretch another hundred feet on each side.
On 14 July 2021....weather forecasters gave an updated warning and said a significant front was moving in....in roughly 12 hours.
Up until that point, it'd been a pretty crappy drought, and the region hadn't seen much rain in five or six months.
Most of the towns and villages along this region that the forecast was given to....are built within 300 feet of the 'stream'. In their minds, there was 'raised' levels, and flood levels, but nothing to an extreme.
Enough of a warning? Most everyone in the region argues about this.
What came was a very slow-moving intense front....dumping a ton of rain on a drought area....with hills nearby which could not absorb the rain coming down. In the landscape beyond the hills....same story....dry soil, and run-off being a major problem....to the hills, and the only exit is the Ahr River.
In a matter of roughly twenty minutes, the stream was now at a all-time flood stage. At the one-hour point, total destruction of the villages were underway.
Dead in the end? 189.
In terms of a wiped-out scale? 1-to-10? It's pretty much a '10'. This included infrastructure (sewage, drainage, electrical, gas, bridges, roads, etc) and homes/businesses.
It'll one of those event which will take an entire generation for locals to get over.
Blame? This is the odd aspect because you can't really center the blame on the weather folks, the local emergency folks, the politicians, the local building authority, or anyone in particular. When it does come up in chatter on TV....it's usually dumped on the 'plate' of climate change/global warming. It's to the degree that one might suspect locals don't believe the story anymore.
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