The catastrophic floods of 14 and 15 July 2021 caught the whole country off guard, and Echternach in particular. Within a short period of time, water levels on the Sûre river rose sharply, sweeping through streets, shops, homes, and cellars in the abbey town. It was a once-in-a-century flood.
Thomas Huybrecht has run an optician's shop in Echternach for the past eight years, and still remembers the night clearly. He recalled waking up at 2 or 3am to news that the weather forecast was going to be very, very extreme.
At 4am he headed into town, only to find one of the alleys already under water. He remembered thinking, then and there, what on earth to do next.
The fire service was already laying sandbags, waiting and hoping the water would not keep rising. Word then came through that the water had stopped, before levels rose once again shortly after.
In the end, his shop was left under half a metre of water.
The optician had only moved into the premises a month earlier and had refurbished everything from scratch. The damage came in at over €70,000.
Steve Wagner, one of the managers of an electrical shop on Hallergaass street, still has 15 July very much in mind. His own shop escaped major damage, but the ordeal of some of his neighbours left him shaken.
As early as 14 July, when the disaster was still looming, he and his colleagues had been on standby to lend a hand. What struck him most was the solidarity shown by the people of Echternach.
As people were still cleaning and clearing things, they came out with brooms and helped one another, hauled things upstairs, and pitched in wherever needed. Then there were the residents who had been evacuated and everyone who had to be housed somewhere.
The solidarity there had been immense, Wagner said. Contributions were collected, whether financial or in kind.
More could always have been done, he added, but in the end everyone helped a little, and no matter how "done" people were, they still continued to help.
State financial aid to the municipality of Echternach now totals more than €13 million. The money has gone towards a temporary school and sports hall, and is also earmarked for further preventive protection measures, which are to be broadened in future to make the town better prepared for flooding, as Echternach Deputy Mayor Carole Hartmann explained.
Hartmann said the municipality continued to invest in flood protection, pointing to the flood wall and to other pieces of flood defence infrastructure already put in place. That work would carry on, she added, since no one can ever be well prepared enough to face the next flood.
There are also regular exchanges with neighbouring German municipalities to improve cooperation, and a flood study has been commissioned, which experts will draw up on the basis of the latest findings from 2021 and from other heavy rainfall events.
Private residents should also benefit from it, Hartmann added.
It was a service that had been developed in recent months and had been taken up by many residents of Echternach, she explained, giving them the chance to sit down with experts and work out how each household could better protect its own home from flooding. The municipality has an obligation to protect the town, she noted, but individuals also have to be able to protect their own property.
The municipality has therefore given residents the option of drawing up flood protection plans for their homes through its consultancy partner. All in all, 40 households in the municipality of Echternach have used the service thus far.
