A hotel room in hotel and conference center De Zeeuwse Stromen in Renesse. Two bags with personal items: mother’s ashes and rings, removed from the rubble by the fire brigade, three trousers and a few shirts, which Christel Brunger was later allowed to remove from the room under supervision. She is no longer allowed to enter her house – where the tornado tore the roof off. For her own safety. “I have nothing left”, sums up the Zierikzeese.
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Her son Quinten spent the night with friends. And Christel, he just hasn’t slept. The ‘self-medication’ (a few good drinks) wasn’t enough to chase the ghosts in her head. “I was still awake at four o’clock. I am shaking from the tension in my body and I have to relax, because I have fibromyalgia (a condition in which you suffer from long-term (chronic) pain in your muscles and connective tissue, ed.).” Hopefully the doctor will call back shortly with the announcement that she will get something to sleep, she says with a trembling voice. “You can safely write it down: the tears are now running down my cheeks.”