For weeks it was bone dry in Baden-Württemberg, then the rain came with full force. Cellars fill up, lightning strikes, the fire brigade is out and about a lot.
Offenburg (dpa/lsw) - Storms and heavy rain made for an uncomfortable start to the weekend in Baden-Württemberg - and more thunderstorms are already on the way. The German Weather Service expects showers, isolated thunderstorms and sometimes heavy rain on Sunday. Only at the beginning of the week will it be clearer and dry again.
On Friday evening, the storms flooded numerous cellars and apartments in several regions of Baden-Württemberg, lightning struck, a few trees fell down, a slope in the Black Forest slipped and several cars skidded on wet roads.
In the Rhein-Neckar district, the focus was on Walldorf and the communities of Nußloch, Wiesloch and Sandhausen. The fire brigade pumped out a total of 150 basements, a police spokesman told SWR. The operations dragged on until early Saturday morning.
According to initial estimates, a lightning strike in a hall complex in Weingarten (district of Karlsruhe) caused damage in the millions. According to witnesses, the lightning struck on Saturday night, as the police announced in the morning. The building houses halls that are used as car repair shops, paint shops and warehouses. The fire brigade was on site with around 300 forces from surrounding regions. According to a spokesman, the operation should last all Saturday.
Because of water masses and debris on the road, the police closed the Pforzheim-Ost junction of the Autobahn 8 in the direction of Stuttgart on Friday evening. The right lane was also closed for several hours because mud was spreading. Nobody got hurt.
On the A 81 near Ludwigsburg, three people suffered injuries in an aquaplaning accident. A 51-year-old driver skidded his car on the wet road on Friday evening, crashed into the guardrail on the left and turned around his own axis several times.
In the Rhine-Neckar region, the fire brigade deployed more than 350 times, a spokesman said on Saturday morning. In Walldorf, many cellars were flooded, as were a horse stable and underground car parks. A man was trapped in a basement apartment while water pushed into the apartment from outside. A neighbor was able to save him from distress.
Cellars, streets and underpasses were also flooded in the region around Konstanz and manhole covers were flushed out of sewage shafts. Nobody got hurt. In Zell am Harmersbach (Ortenaukreis), a slope fell onto a street and streets were flooded, a spokesman said. Trees and construction fences fell in other regions.
