Florianis in action

Automatically saved draft

Non-stop pumping, especially in garages and cellars - that is the main task for the firefighters in the flood area.(Bild: Landesfeuerwehrverband Tirol)

After days of heavy rainfall, a state of disaster was declared in Lower Austria. Hundreds of people had to be rescued from the masses of water. More than 25,000 emergency services were deployed. Among them were 122 Floriani firefighters from Tyrol, who are fighting with their comrades in the east against the consequences of the flooding.

Since 7 a.m. on Tuesday, 122 Tyrolean firefighters from four districts have been battling the consequences of the flood disaster in Lower Austria. The main deployment site is Rust in the Tullnerfeld, where the masses of water from several once small streams flooded entire settlements. "In some places, the water was one and a half meters high on the first floor, but now it's gone and we're mostly busy pumping out cellars in detached houses," Tyrol's regional fire service commander Jakob Unterladstätter described in an interview with "Krone".

The people in our operational area were evacuated. Now they are returning and have to realize the extent of the destruction.

Jakob Unterladstätter, Landesfeuerwehrkommandant

Bild: DAUM Hubert

In total, there are around 120 so-called damaged areas here. The residents were evacuated around the peak of the flood. In many cases, they returned to their destroyed possessions almost at the same time as the Tyrolean helpers. "For the first time, they have now seen with their own eyes what the water has done. The whole thing is correspondingly emotional," says Unterladstätter. Some farmers in the area had to leave their animals behind.

(Bild: Landesfeuerwehrverband Tirol)

The Tyrolean firefighters are quartered in the local safety center. They spent the night on Tuesday on camp beds.

Another day of operations, then 450 kilometers home
On Wednesday, they will return to the pumping operation, with the 450-kilometer return journey planned for later in the afternoon. Other fire department disaster trains, some from other federal states, will take over. The roughest clean-up alone is likely to take days or weeks.