Summer storms and flooding
Summer storms and flooding in Switzerland at an irregular frequency has to be expected between May and June. The year we moved to this new place back in June 2016 we had similar heavy summer storms and flooding with more severity.
It was raining continuously for almost 2 weeks just a couple of days before we were moving. As a result, our cellar in the previous apartment was flooded. I was just in time to save our moving boxes. In fact quite a few of areas in and around Zürich experienced severe flooding and the streams and rivers were gushing out with such intensity following the aftermath of such sudden high density of rainfall.
This year we experienced again one such storms. We shot what we could on our mobiles and I uploaded a video on You Tube- Swiss Summer Storms video.
Flooding and damages
Such quick storms and flooding is usually accompanied by a lot of property and personal effects damages, a long laborious process with the insurance claims etc.
The little stream flowing through our property was so full and flowing so fiercely that one of our neighbours who lives here for the past 20 years remarked that they didn’t have such a severe rain on one single evening.
The stream at the end of the property in May
The stream in our property had very little water the whole of spring due to fewer rainfalls this year.
Finally, we had the big deluge in the last week of may on the 30th. I had just returned from the gym fortunately just when it started to rain lightly which turned very quickly to a hail storm followed by heavy rains.
Things got so bad so quickly within a couple of hours that the local fire brigade was on constant demand for the whole evening lasting until midnight.
Flooding of our Laundry cum Heating room
Our home also encountered a little flooding in our cellar due to some construction default which the builder failed to fix.
Water was flowing through the exhaust vents from the heating system, nothing dangerous. If the level had risen more than it was, then our damages would have gone into hundreds of thousands.
We managed to clean it up ourselves. Our neighbours were badly hit as a result all of their heating systems needed replacing including new flooring. Their personal effects strored down was damaged beyond repair.
Because the whole village lies down hill a little we have to expect such flash floods at least once in a decade if the statistics were accurate. Therefore to minimize our damages we will have to rectify the walls above ground for the vents and windows in the cellar.
The only upside is that my laundry cum heating room were clean in the difficult to reach places.
We have a dehumidifier installed permanently in both our cellar rooms and they were working full speed.
Summer storms and flooding in our garden
We were also lucky with our garden because only a few of our plants which suffered damage. We had just finished our spring planting Spring planting 2018
Out of the 12 watercress we planted on the edge of the stream only 3 survived. The rest of our newly planted watercress got washed away with the sudden flooding.
The timely intervention of the local council forest department in cleaning up the debris flowing down the stream prevented further flooding.
Fun and Adventure for Kids
The kids in the neighbourhood were the only ones who were the most excited. It was difficult to get them to bed till after 10 pm. Each one inspecting their friend’s cellars, running back and forth aimlessly and just watching the drama outside. Their excitement was uncontrollable. Despite the rains, they preferred to stay outside and watch the fire department plying back and forth. Also the kids were excited to see the cranes working at the stream clearing up the debris etc.
My little girl managed to get at least 2 winter-boots and 1 rain boots fully wet with all this excitement.
My daughter helped cleaning up the cellar with her father. I cleaned up the dining area towards the garden window.
Fortunately not much damage.
Finally we can only say we escaped with the least damage and went to bed with a good days work done.