Floods: how to avert disasters in the short and long term?
Following heavy rainfall, several countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been hit by severe flooding. There have been a number of fatalities in Romania, the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland, and more people are missing. Entire villages have had to be evacuated and hundreds of thousands of citizens are without electricity. Europe's press discusses what needs to be done now, what should be postponed, and what progress has been made.
A once-in-a-century event every decade
The Kleine Zeitung warns:
“What we are forced to witness here is the consequence of man-made climate change. What researchers have very accurately predicted is now happening: extreme events are becoming more frequent and more severe. What used to happen once every 100 years is now happening almost once a decade. And global warming has only reached around 1.4 degrees. In a worst case scenario it will be more than 4 degrees this century, with all the catastrophic consequences that entails. The decision is still ours: we can change course or we can continue to heed the storytellers who deny climate change and its causes.”
Austrians prefer the climate deniers
The effects of climate change have little impact on elections in Austria, complains Der Standard:
“Two weeks before the election, the FPÖ - the party that denies man-made climate change, warns of 'climate hysteria' in its election manifesto and wants to undo the latest climate policy achievements - is leading the polls. The fight against everything supposedly foreign - from immigration to transgender people - seems to be more rewarding in elections than the fight against global warming - despite the heat deaths, storm victims, destroyed houses, ruined harvests, and millions in damage and chaos. The majority of the population seems to be politically immune to the climate crisis. Seeing roads washed away is apparently easier to accept than a 100 km/h speed limit on the motorway.”
Put party disputes on the backburner
Political bickering is totally out of place at the moment, Gazeta Wyborcza insists:
“Clearly Poland's politicians aren't mature enough to switch off their party-based mentalities in the face of disasters, speak less or even remain silent. Kaczyński [PiS] has apparently decided that his voters need a steady dose of hatred and is serving it up to them regardless of the circumstances. It also looks bad that the politicians of the Civic Coalition are trying to outdo each other in posting water levels that supposedly prove that during its time in government the PiS neglected the construction of flood defences. The priority now is the efficient evacuation of residents. ... The appraisals will have to wait until the water has subsided.”
Debate about the right course of action needed
Political criticism must be possible even in an emergency, wPolityce counters:
“Politics is not at odds with help and solidarity. After all, politics is not about what you say but about what you do and the ability to act. ... The idiotic notion has taken hold that politics is not about solving problems, but about talking about them. The more heated and emotional these pseudo-debates become, the more it's supposed to prove that this is what politics is all about. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is just the dirty foam surrounding politics as such.”
Authorities doing a better job than ever before
Despite the damage, the current flood disaster in the Czech Republic is being handled much better than similar events in 1997 and 2002, Hospodářské noviny comments:
“The warning system has massively improved. Hydrologists, the state, the regions and the municipalities are swiftly exchanging information, and accurate details reach the people just as swiftly. Of course, mistakes are made, as they were in Bohumín, where the water rose twice as high as predicted. But what must not be repeated is what happened in 2002, when the mayor of Prague at the time, Igor Němec, claimed that 'the situation is excellent', only to have water pour through the tunnels of the Prague metro a few hours later.”
Solidarity still exists in times of danger
The way people are coming together to combat the flooding shows that things aren't all that bad in the country, the Süddeutsche Zeitung notes with satisfaction:
“Flocks of private volunteers are piling up sandbags, helping residents to bring themselves and their belongings to safety, or simply bringing the emergency services coffee and tea. In many cases so many people have come forward that cities and districts set up coordination centres for them. ... This is not the country that the doomsayers and naysayers, the badmouthers and non-stop moaners complain about in talk shows and on the Internet, not the country of selfishness, ignorance and incompetence. It's good to remind ourselves of this during the current overheated debates.”