The adventures of U-Boat Cougar

Arkady001

Arkady001

Club Member
Apr 2, 2013
461
129
Iserlohn, Germany
OK so you've all seen the floods in Southern Germany.
Today we had the mother of all thunderstorms in NRW - lasted about 55 minutes. I was driving in town when it hit (the sky turned so dark I thought it was midnight) and had to pull over as visibility dropped to 2m and the roads started flooding so badly, water was sloshing up over the bonnet in 1st gear! To say the sight of muddy brown water 'bow-waving' halfway up the bonnet is an alarming one is a massive understatement!

Some cars didn't make it, they sucked in water through their exhausts, I think, judging by the way they were abandoned (good old Army training - just keep it slow and steady and keep your foot on the gas when driving through deep water and the engine shouldn't flood as long as the air-intake pipe isn't submerged)...

That water went from nothing to about 50cm deep in about 30 seconds as it travelled down the hills and the drains were overwhelmed.

Thankfully the weather-seals along the door undersides stopped me from getting wet feet as the water lapped along the doors as I managed to fight my way into a supermarket car-park, which was higher-up than the road that serviced it, though I did have to spend half an hour pulling all the fallen foliage out of the grilles and around the wheel arches...

The only domestic damage was our sun-shade on the balcony which was reduced to matchwood and some soggy seat-cushions...

So glad we live at 388m above sea level and not at the bottom of a valley...
 
Luke Daisley said:
Lucky your windscreen wasnt put through. I saw hail the size of tennis balls in honer Yesterday.
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We heard later that a friend over in Hemer (about 12km away) had that very thing happen.

I was more concerned about falling branches - the roads afterwards were littered with tree-debris, including some stuff big enough to crush a car and its occupants completely.
On the regional news we heard that two people were killed on the autobahns nearby as visibility dropped to zero and they collided in the rain and collateral damage to buildings in the area is quite extensive - mostly supermarket (warehouse-style) roofs collapsing due to the sudden weight of water falling on them and not running off quick enough as the drain-pipes were unable to cope with the volume...
 
On my return from an hour North of Hamburg on Wednesday I drove throughj a pretty horrific thunder storm around Bremen. Visibility was not too bad, but, the r5ain was something else. Managed to wash all the protien off the windscreen of the lorry thougfh.
 
D1CKL said:
On my return from an hour North of Hamburg on Wednesday I drove throughj a pretty horrific thunder storm around Bremen. Visibility was not too bad, but, the r5ain was something else. Managed to wash all the protien off the windscreen of the lorry thougfh.
Click to expand...

That was the same storm system. Wreaked havoc here - there's still detritus all over the roads in some areas...
 
Sounds like when I went to Lemans in 2007, the visibility wnt down to about 5m in the rain, I could only tell there was a huge articulated lorry in front from his rear lights, just the red glow. Did pass somethiong that made me laugh at the time, a Lotus Eliese at the side of the road with its owner franticaly trying to erect the roof :LOL: (its in about 5 parts)
 
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