f13.net

We are having a bit of a flood here, including the Danube rising high, so I went out and made a few snapshots:

Location is Linz, Austria (pop. 193k).


Part 1, The Wall
I live in the northern part of the town, so that's where I started my journey:

(http://i.imgur.com/hDLPkl2.jpg)

View from the Nibelungen bridge onto the Danube leaving its bed. Note the traffic sign in the middle of the image: this is supposed to be dry land. Nor is there a wall normally, it's flood protection that has been erected in the last 2-3 days.

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(http://i.imgur.com/ld7FMHL.jpg)

Same view, up close. Judging from the sign the water roughly 1.8 meters above road level, which itself is - in normal times - 2 meters higher than the river.

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(http://i.imgur.com/d2X8ipE.jpg)

Sea - land border.

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(http://i.imgur.com/fiunr7d.jpg)

Took me a while to find a path down, but here it is. Using the stone blocks as measurement I marked the waterline...it's above my head.

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(http://i.imgur.com/i3AIcRk.jpg)

I suppose this is how people in Berlin during the cold war must have felt. The barrier keeps going for about 1 km, after which it ends at higher ground. Besides a few minor leaks, nothing exciting to see. Cudos firemen!

Next up: Part Deux, Beyond the wall. My trip to the southern shore of the Danube where the flooding effects have been more drastic. Unfortunately cut short by me running out of battery, so I'll add it tomorrow (providing the water is still there).

Intermission

Until I leave my flat again, here some press pictures from other parts of Upper Austria:

Town of Melk - Pretty everyone is flooded but the monks of Melk monastery.

(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/03/1369395112000-hochwasser-15.jpg)

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Melk - zoomed in.

(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/03/1369395142784-hochwasser-16.jpg)

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Less than 2 km from where I grew up: Firemen in Alkoven saving local wildlife.

(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/03/1369394646690-hochwasser-11.jpg)

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Massive flooding in the town of Schärding.

(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/03/1369396050446-hochwasser-18.jpg)

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Gondoliers in Vendig Firefighters in Schärding.

(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/03/1369394738996-Hochwasser-12.jpg)

Wow.

Um yeah, there's no way in hell I would get that close if I knew that the water on the other side of a temporary barrier was over my head  :ye_gods:

I am not a risk taking person normally, but when putting the head of the wall one could actually hear the water gurgling. Which was a bit weird.  :uhrr:

I suppose if it was dangerous the road would have been closed.

I want to come over and take pictures too!

I also live on the Danube, although it's called the Brigach at the point where it flows through my town and doesn't become the Danube for about another 30km or so. It is also much. much higher than usual here but as it's only about 10m across at this point we don't have anything like the kind of stuff that Calapine is dealing with.

Didn't you learn anything from Atlantis? Run, you fools!

That's mindboggling. Meantime, in Finland we've been having a countrywide heat wave, all the way to Lapland.

I didn't know there was such a thing as walls that could hold back flood waters. Oh, to live in a civilized modern nation.

I visited Melk once (a friend spent high school there) so that was such a shocking photo to see.  This is fascinating stuff.

Fun times are about to happen in Budapest, too... they're forecasting the biggest flood in 50 years.

Good thing I live on a hill on the Buda side.  :awesome_for_real:

So have you seen flooding like this in the last century or so, or is this something totally new?  The quick erection of the flood wall seems to imply this was seen before and planned for.  It's definitely not a system that could have been thrown together quickly.

I've never seen water barriers like those before.  Those are pretty neat.  Why does the U.S. still use sand bags again?

It was good enough for Their Sainted Parents.  Change is bad. Technology is only good if it doesn't cost money. Etc.

We had a similar flood 11 years ago (in the same areas), so we weren't hit completely unprepared.

But yes, I guess not starving your government and actually letting them do their job helped as well. Plus volunteer firefighters, lots of them (almost 300 000 out of 8,5 million citizens are in volunteer fire brigades). We can't thank them enough. They are tirelessly doing a tremendous job in such events.

Yeah, those flood walls look awesome, but in the US's defense, a lot f our flooding is on plains/flatlands and on saturated ground, which probably couldn't support the weight of those walls and/or would be difficult to install.  Notice how it looks like they are all attached to concrete barriers at the base rather than standing on the ground?

Those are some crazy pics, Calapine.

Holy shit.

Yeah, those walls are cool, but completely impractical everywhere I've lived that's flooded in America.  It looks as though they were put up to fill in gaps in the natural barriers against the river, caused by roads and the such.

Great photos however!  Hope nothing to valuable/ancient gets destroyed.

Melk looks like a hella idyllic town aside from the damp.

Yeah, that is the state of American ingenuity.  That looks really hard to implement.  Let's put sand in bags and let people drown instead.

The design of American cities and the design of European cities are wildly different.

Case in point: "It's hard"

Case in point, it's impossible. 

Well if that doesn't get both of them laid nothing will.

"So Paul what did you do this weekend?"
"Bwah, the usual; Saved some baby deer from drowning, have a look at the pictures."

In fact my cynical self is slightly wondering if they didn't bring the deer themselves, dunked them in and it's all an elaborate ruse!

Honestly though, volunteer firemen:  :Love_Letters:

Not being an expert in US waterways I still doubt it would be impossible. The dutch manage to keep land dry that is under sea level.

The ugly truth is that it is hard and expensive. And there is no visible way to turn a profit out of doing it right.

While it didn't quite give me the amount of boner that it gave you, I too was moved by this picture.

Yeah, the flooding is also hitting Swabia pretty hard. The trains through Dresden are chronically delayed. Up here in Berlin, everything's still peachy, for now.

Pretty stunning pictures, especially given that I was in Wien not three weeks ago.

Also:


How incredibly Austrian. :drill:

And the Dutch traveled to New Orleans after their flood disaster in the 50's to learn about superior levee systems for living below sea level.   :awesome_for_real:

We're talking about sand bag's vs. these temporary barrier things, which are used for localized flood control.  You're talking about levees and entire flood control infastructure on a vast scale (of which the US has one of the most extensive systems in the world), which is a completely different topic.

Anyways, I agree Yoru. I was in both Vienna and Prague the first week of May, so its crazy to see some of these pictures now.  When I was in Prague, I saw all the random little damns they had crossing the river.  Kind of wondered at the time how they handled high water and flooding.  Now I know!

As with everything else, the US has the best system where people are ready to pay for it. They could have an equally good system for localized flood control, but I suspect there is no market for it.

You said it is impossible. I just said I doubt that because there are large scale flood controls in place. You now refuted with "Yes, and New Orleans has one of those".

So, you agree it is possible?

Downstream from Schärding (my home town), where the Inn (the river that's flooding Schärding), the Danube and the Ilz meet lies a lake formerly known as Passau:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iluy9cx_uxw

No, I was just pointing out the irony since New Orleans eventually failed catastrophically.

Edit:  Blah, just cutting it all out, will derail discussion to much.  On with the pics!

Come to think of it, I live only a couple hundred yards from the Vistula river here in Warsaw.  I should probably go out and take a glance at its levels considering all the rain we've been getting.   :awesome_for_real:

I agree. US towns are boring in comparison.

Well it is not sufficient to build it you also have to maintain it. Since the local and federal government took more and more of those funds away it was only a matter of time until one of the dams or levees failed.

too soon.  :why_so_serious:

Interestingly enough even though this is the worst flood in Germany since 1501 (yes records go back that far) with a record water level of nearly 13 m for the Danube (it should be 4.8m at this time of year instead) the flood damage is pretty harmless.

Well Passau has turned into a lake but it always does in the Spring when the Danube gets flooded because they refuse to upgrade their flood protection and drainage systems and have for decades but in most parts of Germany this flood is actually worse than the flood of 2002 (the 'flood of the century as it was called') yet most regions that were hit pretty hard in 2002 didn't have problems now due to upgraded flood prevention infrastructure.

The regions in Bavaria that are highest risk are because of levees that haven't been upgraded since the 1960's due to local administrations lack of foresight and willingness to spend

Flooding in American cities isn't easy to predict, and population sprawl has moved citizens into areas where they honestly shouldn't be living. That's why you get flooding in rural areas where they put up sandbags, because there's no infrastructure there. Also, if the flooding is big enough in major cities, absolutely nothing you do will stop it. I mean the Atlanta metro area is literally 22,000 square kilometers for the European folks. You're going to try and flood-proof that area from the rivers and lakes?

The meme that NO failed spectacularly is partially wrong.  It worked wonderfully for what it was designed for.  The problem was that what they were designed for was far below what the ACOE thought they were designed for.   It was assumed soil was better than it was, and it was also assumed that piling were 17 feet deep when they were only 10 feet.  Biiiiig problems.

I'll make sure to visit soon and support the local economy by having some beer!

Part 2: Got canceled, as I was too lazy to leave the house. Sorry!

So instead I present you some blurry pictures from yesterday, enhanced with the power of photoshop!


View from the Nibelungen bridge, to the right: Green line marks normally dry areas. In the background the amazing unremarkable Castle Linz. Fair weather image provided for comparison. Please ignore the debris in the image center.

(http://i.imgur.com/TvzRL38.png)

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(http://i.imgur.com/Fydc6bN.jpg)

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View to the left. Lentos museums of arts. Once again the green line denotes nominal shoreline.

(http://i.imgur.com/VDYzkvl.png)

That concludes our tour. Please enjoy your stay!

Edit: About those 'mobile walls'. Yes they (and increased flood protection in general) were a lesson of the historic 2002 flood. I have never seen them before, but now they are popping up everywhere in pictures. Seem to be very versatile.

Jeff Kelly's comment about Bavaria and their lack of preparation made me chuckle. We had a similar situation in Lower Austria, and just like Bavaria it's a region where the conservative-christian party rules supreme. As well as nepotism and cronyism. You may be familiar with the type....

Mobile flood walls:

"Boats crossing"? Really? Oh the irony...

Wait, this is happening in summer in a German-speaking country - shouldn't those waterways and parks be full of fat naked men?

They are in the volunteer fire brigade.

You are trying to be funny, but it's probably true. Hmpf.

Also:

(http://i.imgur.com/QkDwvhC.png)

Are you trying to tell me that your parks in Austria don't instantly fill full of fat naked guys the instant the sun peeks out from behind a cloud? Because I have heard eye-witness accounts to the contrary.

Those walls are awesome.

^ THIS. ^

I had only heard about these floods, but these pics are crazy. Good luck Euros :)

Those walls could actually be functional around Pittsburgh in quite a few places.

But this town would never go for it since most of these creatures here are carry-overs from Innsmouth.  :why_so_serious:

Here's another shot showing how awesome those walls really are. I can't imagine the water pressure behind them.

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/966877_410909502362035_1814042570_o.jpg)

We dont have (many) walls like that in America because we dont have very many places worth fuckin saving.  Better to let it wash away and start fresh.  This postcard place in Austria, on the other hand... well you can see why they get walls.

I'd imagine about 5 PSI at the bottom (looks like about ten feet high, and water exerts something like half a PSI per foot of height).  More than strong enough to leak through "solid" concrete.

We also don't build many major cities in a huge floodplain that can swamp the entire city. NOLA being the major exception, and they do have all kinds of flood walls and levies.

That river doesn't have much more to go until it becomes a problem. :|

I am surprised it doesn't rip the concrete that the wall is bolted to up.  It's an incredible picture.

I suppose you do have more cities that are located at rivers than just New Orleans. The current Water Level in Passau is 8 meters or 26 feet higher than the average. I suppose a similar flood would pretty much submerge many US cities located along rivers too.

Cincinnati had a flood like that in 1995, went up to 2nd street downtown.  Lots of home losses, but buildings on the river all have parking garages on the lower level or are required to have flood walls integral to their structure so they aren't washed out.

That would erase pretty much every single town in West Virginia along the Ohio. My xgf's grandmother lives in Wellsburg and you can see the river from her back yard which is only a few feet above its banks. Pretty much the same for every town long that strip.

Lots of smaller rural cities are built in terrible flooding areas in the US, make no mistake. They don't have the means or the inclination to build flood walls though for a population under 5,000 people.

Also, in many areas there's not much choice where to build the houses. Those river valleys or the surrounding mountains.


For example: Innsbruck (provincial capital of Tirol)

(http://www.innregionen.com/uploads/tx_templavoila/innsbruck-von-oben.jpg)

60% of Austria are mountainous, the valleys where most of our cites are were carved out of these mountains by the very same rivers that are now flooded.

Of course, there is a discussion going on that many houses were built in "Red Zones", meaning areas that had a very high likelyhood of being flooded. So, as many of those walled off areas were originally floodplains for those rivers, protecting them just moved the water masses downriver to areas that originally wouldn't have been in danger.

And yes it was quite close in some areas. In Greim in Upper Austria for example there were 14 Zentimeter (5.5 inches) missing from the water flooding the whole area.

Edit: Its a lose-lose situation really. All things considered it seems things were handled quite well. Of course, the whole damage can only be assessed once the water recedes. Scratch that, it seems several dams in Bavaria burst and whole cities are flooded.

yeah it has literally rained for a month straight now and we had several torrential rainfalls in the last week alone that reached 200 - 400 l/m^2 (5 - 10 gal./sq.ft.) per hour. The soil is soaked to capacity with water and dams are being washed out and weakened by the continuous rainfall and the water pressure from the flooded rivers.

Officials had hoped that the dams hold out until after the flood has reached its apex. This will unfortunately be on thursday and two dams have already failed with more being expected to fail soon.

They were build to last and they held out pretty long  but none of those dams were designed to withstand continuous flooding and rainfall that lasts for weeks on end.

Usually rivers flood in the spring because of the rain and the excess water from the melting snow that comes down from the mountains which usually only takes about a week until the worst has come to pass.

This is wrong. As an example, St. Louis and Kansas City both require extensive levee systems to protect them from the Mississippi and the Missouri, respectively. Sacramento is also at huge risk should it have a levee break in a big storm. Memphis is another one, I'd guess there are also cities on the Ohio that could get nailed. Fargo ND (not a major city, but still 100k or so) has to sandbag to protect itself from the Red River just about every year.

America is huge. Of the almost 300 cities over 100k in pop, I wouldn't be shocked if 10% of them have flood issues in the past or current means to stop them.

I just don't think it's a major concern in most American cities by design. We have an ample amount of unsettled land, and we're not hemmed in city design area like Austria.

This is how things look right now

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/hochwasser-donau-ueberflutet-grosse-teile-deggendorfs-fotostrecke-97593-tablet.html

Christ. Are you guys going to be all right?

The waters are starting to recede west of Vienna. The East and parts of Germany are still in danger, though.

Still, gotta have your order. Can't drown with a not properly mantained lawn.

(http://images.derstandard.at/t/13/livebericht/1369362626058/ee73aafa-6f08-4a44-b6d2-fbe93e73f590.jpg)

Just spotted some predictions that the Elbe in Hamburg is going to go from 6.25 to 9.75 meters over the next week. Kinda glad I'm up on the Havel/Spree instead of further downstream.

That's got to be the strangest fucking picture I've ever seen.

To quote Yoru from this very thread:

If I remember correctly you share some sort of island with another group of people called the English? Shouldn't you then be sort of used to the view of people religiously tending to their lawns?

Thats what the Scots have sheep for.

Well one reason anyway. :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, if we that was in some of the subdivisions in the US, I can see that happening. Those HoAs don't care about floods, that lawn must be moved dammit!

The fence porn thread, is best thread.

edit - The guy mowing his lawn has obviously RTFM'd (read the fence manual):
(http://images.derstandard.at/2013/06/05/1369406869601-grein.jpg)

Okay, now those walls make a lot more sense to me.

Makes sense sure, but that is still a huge amount of pressure to hold back especially with moving water. I think that is what I am in awe of; those walls are really not all that thick and the supports seem too few to hold back that amount of water. I'd like to know when the transparent aluminum was invented.  :why_so_serious:

Moving water is less pressure!  At least if the flow is parallel to the wall, and still insignificant compared to the weight of the water.  Metal is really strong, so that doesn't surprise me.

I'd think the bolts joining the metal wall to the concrete would be the biggest point of failure, but their engineers probably tested for load and didn't try to cut a few millimeters off to save a penny per bolt.  The whole thing does make a lot more sense though.  I thought they were just bolting those thing down on the roads, not a pre-planned sunken bulwark.

Relatively recently. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride)

It's not so much the strength of the walls, but the seals they manage to form with them that impresses me. German engineering eh?

I also saw this, which seemed pretty awesome:

That would make good advertising for the Pool Company.  Visually that is.

Poor pool scrubbing robot.

Pool's closed.

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