Europe/Prague flood

Col_M

Col_M

Col_M

Soldato
Joined
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London
It's pretty wet out here in Prague right now, the Vltava is literally at bursting point in many places. To give you an idea of the amount of water here the normal flow rate is around 160 m3s-1, right now it's 2900 m3s-1, the Thames by comparison is usually 66 m3s-1. People are on standby for evacuation in some parts of Prague if the water gets much higher.

The thing is the Vltava isn't actually the problem as there are lots of dams along its length before Prague and they can hold and control the flow but the Berounka that enters the Vltava just before Prague has no such dams and is what is causing all the problems.

In the last hour or so the main sewage plant has shut down so we're now sending raw sewage downstream to Germany (sorry Fritz).

I took these on my lunch break, it has risen about 10cm since then. There are actually embankments on either side of the river that are well under the water. I was standing on Palackeho bridge.
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It's meant to reach a peak tomorrow morning but they said that yesterday too and it's still rising. I live on top of one of the largest hills in Prague so no drama for me :)

Here is a translated (badly) website with regularly updated news.
http://translate.google.com/transla...ebou-vltava-bude-kulminovat-v-utery-rano.html
 
Mason- said:
Oh dear I'm meant to be going to Prague 10th to 14th of June.
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I'd say you should be ok, the water level should have dropped by then. The British Embassy hasn't advised against travel yet and it's a fair way off the levels seen during the 2002 floods. Just keep checking the situation.
 
Cosimo said:
Not looking good. :( Hope it doesn't turn into a major disaster.
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Indeed, one positive thing is that all the animals have been evacuated safely from the zoo, in 2002 they were caught with their pants down and some animals drowned but this time they seem to have learnt and had a plan in place.
 
Its safe to say that I have had someone move my cars out the under ground carpark in Karlin

It was really upsetting to see what happened the last time especially to the animals in the Zoo.
 
Dr House said:
Its safe to say that I have had someone move my cars out the under ground carpark in Karlin

It was really upsetting to see what happened the last time especially to the animals in the Zoo.
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Just as well, from what I've heard there are voluntary evacuations in place in Karlin.

Looking at Twitter it looks like Orlik dam is about 4cm away from overflowing, that's a lot of water. From what I understand with my bad Czech they're increasing the flow on dams downstream now so they have more of a buffer when it does overflow. The increase in flow rate over the last couple hours in Prague seems to agree with that, it's at about 3000 m3s-1 right now. That shouldn't be too bad though as the flood defenses that are in place are good to the rate of the 2002 floods which was ~5200 m3s-1. Apparently :-/

An interesting gallery - http://zpravy.idnes.cz/foto.aspx?galerie=povodne-3-6-2013
 
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mikejs21 said:
My parents, Auntie and Uncle are due to fly out on wednesday afternoon to Prague. No travel issues is there? Cheers.
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If they're flying in there will be no problem, at the moment the only transport issues are certain roads and trains into the city. Most metro stations in the centre are closed so a taxi is the best bet unless they fancy tackling the buses and trams.
 
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Newport County are due to play a friendly vs FC Carl Zeiss Jena in Germany next month, their ground currently looks like this:

 
Cosimo said:
Has it peaked?
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I've checked the Czech Hydrological Institute website and it seems to have, it has leveled off and is sitting at 3170 m3s-1.

The streets are pretty quiet, at least outside the tourist centre as with the reduced transport links people are either staying or working from home. Generally business as usual for most places though. I did get stuck in traffic on the way to work.

I'm probably going to walk down to the river at lunch to see what it looks like. I have seen that the road tunnel in the 2nd photo in my OP is under water.

Amazingly the sun is out here in Prague :)

Places downstream are getting the worst of it though, Usti nad Labem isn't looking pretty.
 
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I remember the floods in 2002 as I was there shortly afterwards. SO many riverside bars and restaurants were gutted and flooded out :(
 
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