In Alkmaar a year ago the shit sloshed against and in the houses

The house of Mariella from Alkmaar is now – except for the last painting – ready after a ‘deluge’ flooded into her house last year. She lives on Koningsweg where the rainwater “came certainly thirty to forty centimeters high.”

“I just came home that Friday with my son. We had already seen the dark clouds on the bike on the way. And then it burst. In no time it was flooded. It came halfway into the living room, sometimes in waves through a passing car.”

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“My wooden floor, walls, furniture, the shoes and things in the hallway; everything was soaked and everything was covered with ‘dung water’. So not only broken, but also smelly.” Mariella approached her insurance company for the damage – several tens of thousands of euros. “With that I at least had the current market value of everything that was broken. But not a habitable house.”

floor drain

“I therefore had to take out a second mortgage. Also to adjust my home right away. This is a house from before 1900, and my threshold was lower than the street because it has been raised. I now have that threshold and my entire entrance with ten inches to increase.”

But the worries have not gone away for Mariella. “The water then flowed straight from the Paardenmarkt into our street. We are literally the drain. That made it so extremely high here. The municipality should do something about that.”

“But also think of the Gedempte Nieuwesloot next door. The name says it all: that street was a ditch, and perhaps not for nothing. Much more has been petrified here in recent years.”

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And not only the Koningsweg was flooded. The same problem played out in the adjacent Ramen: in addition to its own downpour, that street had to deal with the running water of the Doelenveld. Result: significant damage. For Kyra (see video above) it turned out to be the ‘end of exercise Alkmaar’.

Uninhabitable

Kyra Schmitz (30) now lives in Heemskerk. “And that was not my own choice. My ground floor apartment turned out to be real uninhabitable after that storm† There was black mold everywhere; so it had to be renovated a lot. My landlord wanted me to keep paying the rent all along, and I didn’t agree. In the end, my lease was not extended.”

Born and raised Alkmaar is disappointed that she has left her town. “But if I can, I’ll come back. The insurance also helped me well with, for example, the laptop and iPad that were killed at the time. But I lost my photos and diplomas.”

According to the municipality of Alkmaar, during the shower of June 18, about 90 mm of water fell in an hour and a half. “With that amount, water can be on the street for a number of hours,” explains a spokesperson. “Otherwise you would have to have sewer pipes so big that they won’t fit into the ground.”

Limit damage

“We inventoried all locations and homes with problems, spoke to residents and gave them advice. In addition, city residents were able to fill in a survey. We are now investigating what measures we can take to limit damage caused by flooding as much as possible.”

The damage that residents have suffered in their homes as a result of the cluster shower is not for the municipality: “That was settled through the insurance of the residents themselves.”

Adapt to more extreme weather

“By 2050, all municipalities in the Netherlands must be climate-adaptive, so Alkmaar too. Last year a climate adaptation strategy It states what adjustments are needed for more extreme weather, and how rainwater can be retained. “There is also cooperation with Saxifrage Alkmaar†

“However, we cannot do it alone. Seventy percent of the land in the municipality does not belong to the municipality, but to companies or residents. That is why they also have an important role in retaining rainwater.”

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The driver agrees that it is difficult to deal with such enormous amounts of water in a city Klazien Hartog of Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier.

“You can’t just build water storage facilities everywhere in a city, but you could (temporarily) use a park for that. We’ve been saying it for some time: those tiles have to be removed, more greenery has to go in.”

Separate sewer

According to her, municipalities should also work with separate sewer systems. “You saw in Alkmaar that people were swimming under that viaduct. That is actually not desirable because you are swimming in sewage water. We don’t want that.”

Alkmaar acknowledges, when asked, that a separate system often solves problems. “However, the homes must also have a separate system. And that is often not the case with existing homes in the city center. We also include in our research whether additional rainwater drainage or separate sewerage is possible there.

Sandbag in toilet

Hoogheemraad Hartog does have a message for people in the city: “Know what to do if water comes. Put that sandbag in your toilet, so that the water does not come up. And in some places where you know the water comes: a flood shot in front of the door. In any case, be aware that that water can come with such a cluster shower, and then damage you.”