One the weekend following the snow, the rain fell and fell and fell. Sunday it was heavy and continuous for over 36 hours. The siren which had been going with snow problems was now going for cellars to be pumped out. Then on Karneralm, there was a landslide, and a power transformer slid down the hill and the water power station was flooded. Families were evacuated.
Then there was a mudslide behind a house in Ramingstein and towards Tamsweg. Roads were flooded, rivers burst banks. By Monday morning, you couldn’t move far as roads were shut as the clear-up operation began.
The road up to Burg Finstergrun was all but washed away.
In Kendlebruck, a wooden house was turned around 360 degrees by water.
Our local railway was totally taken out by a mudslide, the tracks being pushed up in the air like a fairground ride. Stadl was declared an emergency area. The railway might not be repaired until Christmas.
All over Salzburgerland, Carinthia and Tyrol, similar stories came in, two houses being knocked over by a landslide in Bad Gastein. Such heartbreak after the damage done by the heavy snow. The farmers who had been cut off with no electricity due to the snow, were now facing being washed away, Muhr at the end of the Lungau is only just out of being an emergency area.
By Wednesday, our road was reopened by the herculean efforts of the local council workers. The mudslides will take longer. Here in Austria where all the councils have their own teams and machinery and a local fire brigade, help was quick and efficient. I take my hat off to them all.
Now we have a few days of relative peace and dry. I’m praying for a mild winter with not a lot of snow in the valleys!
So where's the snow? 