Residents of a Czech town face hard recovery after massive flooding

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Torrential rains have gone, flooding waters have been receding and the sun was shining again in the Czech town of Bohumin. But Zuzana Kublova was not in a mood to enjoy it.

The house where Kublova’s family lives was inundated as was almost this entire town in the worst flooding in years that spread at a broad swath of Central Europe.

After three days in safety upstairs, without power, running water or a cellphone signal, she stepped down to face a scene of destruction.

“The entire ground floor is flooded, so all of us seven people and two dogs have to live together on the first floor without electricity and water,” Kublova told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

“And don’t even ask how we go to the toilet,” she said. “It has happened again, something that had happened to us two or three times in the past.”

The town was submerged by a flood wave brought by the Oder River that was fueled by record rains in northeast Czech Republic in recent days.

Bohumin was submerged because it’s among the places that still don’t have an adequate protection against repeated flooding in this part of the country.

Other places ravaged by floods, including Opava, Krnov and parts of the nearby regional capital of Ostrava, experienced a similar ordeal, which many compared to “the flood of the century” in 1997.

“The damages will be huge,” Kublova said. “All is destroyed downstairs. The floors are gone.”

Authorities estimated the damage was in the billions of euros (dollars) in one region alone.

The Czech government approved the deployment of 2,000 troops to join firefighters and others to help with clean-up and recovery efforts.

“We are like newlyweds, resettling again,” Kublova said after inspecting the ground floor, still partially flooded. “It is not very amusing though, till we get some insurance … it is hard to talk about it.”

Three Czechs were among at least 16 people who have been reported killed in the floods, including in Romania, Poland and Austria. No fatalities were reported in Bohumin.

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Associated Press writer Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.