Rain has been a pleasant respite given the recent heatwaves. But five years ago, the picture was very different. Around mid-July 2021, Luxembourg was hit by historic floods. The memory still sits deep, the mayor of Rosport-Mompach said on Wednesday evening. Her municipality was among the hardest hit.
Residents have now been briefed on what has been done in recent years to ensure floods no longer cause such devastation.
Everyone still remembers it as if it were yesterday, Christian Social People's Party (CSV) MP Stéphanie Weydert said. In the municipality where she became mayor in 2023, the water caused extensive damage, particularly in Steinheim and Bour.
Fortunately, the damage in Luxembourg had been limited to material losses, Weydert noted, but the wounds have not fully healed. In the municipality of Rosport-Mompach alone, some 200 households, a handful of businesses, various clubs, and the municipality itself were hard hit.
The Covid pandemic, which until then had all but dominated daily life, had faded into the background almost overnight.
Today, the municipality is better prepared for floods or severe rainfall. Retention basins, dams, and walls have been put in place, and maps have been drawn up to show residents at what water level their home will be affected, with individual advice offered on top.
A total of 278 measures were analysed. One lesson the municipality has drawn is that it must build differently.
The multi-purpose centre in Bour had to be demolished, Weydert explained. "Build back better", she said, is the Home Affairs Ministry's motto, and the municipality is following the same logic on the new Bour campus project.
A new campus is now being built around the existing school in Bour, complete with a multi-purpose centre and a school extension, both of which will sit 70 centimetres above the summer 2021 water level, with technical installations placed on the upper floor.
Even better prepared as they are, the municipality would rather never see floods like those again. That, however, is not a realistic prospect. The mayor, echoed by Environment Minister Serge Wilmes, pointed out that the question is no longer whether another flood will come, but when.
That means the country will be faced with high water again, Wilmes said, will be hit again by strong rainfall, and will of course have to live through further heatwaves, as it did two weeks ago, with the hot spell still not entirely behind us. These are all natural phenomena, he added, which have clearly been amplified by human-driven climate change.
That, he stressed, is something science has established beyond doubt and reminds us of year after year. Wilmes insisted that climate change is not a matter of fate, and that each and every person can do something about it.
