Residents Haelen and Horn are working hard to prevent new damage: ‘It’s like mopping with the tap open’ | Inland

Gerrit Huijbers is almost pleading along the road to ask for a lift. He is on his way home to his houseboat, but the road he was supposed to take is closed. “Are you Catholic?” he asks when he is offered a lift. “Then good things will come to you.” His houseboat, on which he has lived for forty years, is normally located across the street from where the lifeguards normally reside. Ironically, the site of the rescue brigade is completely under water, and the clubhouse slowly disappears into the Meuse.

“Oh dear oh dear”, the 76-year-old houseboat resident exclaims as he walks back and forth along the quay and can no longer find his home. ‘He isn’t…’ Huijbers lets out a cry of relief when he turns the corner and finds his houseboat, pressed slightly diagonally against a row of trees, but floating and well. “I’ll have to cut some branches when the water recedes,” he concludes as he gets into a canoe to reach his floating home. “But that will be alright.”

Cold cola

A few kilometers further, in the village of Horn, an emergency dike gives way. The water slowly creeps towards De Kemp, the lowest street in the village. “We made that dike ourselves,” say young people who are carrying sandbags to barricade their boss’s home. “He didn’t hold up because of the pressure, but we are still happy that we made him,” says Ronald. “It has given everyone here two extra days to prepare.”

The solidarity is also striking in the small Limburg village. Neighbors bring cold coke and water to the hard workers, and Niels is standing on his socks in the muddy front yard of his friend’s employer. “People from surrounding villages, where nothing is wrong, help each other,” he notes.

Biggest disaster ever

A little further down the street a woman with a labrador comes to take a look. “I’ve already barricaded the garage,” she says. “But I want to see if I need to do more. Or the water rises faster.” It is slowing down and seems to stop at some point. “I think we are safe higher up in the village,” she concludes. “The water also moves very slowly. It’s crooked and skewed here, and sometimes you curse those hills, but now it’s nice.”

“This is the biggest disaster ever here,” says houseboat residents Huijbers. “Much worse than in the early 1990s.” Yes, then the water was much more raging and destructive. “But it is now much, much further. And it also takes a long time. It seems to be a few more days before it’s gone again. It is literally mopping with the tap open in this way.” He concludes that his houseboat is still watertight, lights his pipe and canoe further. On to his neighbors. And their neighbors. And their neighbors. “See if anyone else needs help.”

A village further on, in Haelen, a street has also been evacuated because the water is gradually getting closer. People had to leave their homes on Broekweg. But if you come to take a look, you will see more people in the street than live there: groups of young people who are working together (with the help of a truck) to build a temporary emergency dike. “We live behind this house, dry”, says one of the young people. “But we help each other. It would also be the other way around.”

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