A nightmare for former Wormers Jolanda Roggeveen and Peter Kwast: a huge mudflow in Greece destroyed their bed & breakfast ‘Villa Hylas’ on Tuesday night. The participants of the television program ‘Ik Vertrek’ have lost everything.
In 2021, the couple left for the fishing village of Kilada and opened their ‘Villa Hylas’ a year later. The adventure was featured in the program ‘Ik Vertrek’. While that adventure fails for many people, it was a success for Jolanda and Peter: the place has sky-high reviews and they say it is always packed.
Text continues below the photo
Until last Tuesday, when a mudslide destroyed everything. “It is absolutely unreal. Guests stayed in three suites. We expected a lot of rain, that’s what we had heard. At the end of the afternoon it started to rain terribly, I had never seen it so hard. The water was already flooding the yard When it came 3 centimeters below the threshold of the lowest suite, we were already shocked. It happened so quickly.”
“We had not noticed that the land behind us was already full of water. A huge bang followed. The four-meter-high gate of the property exploded from its washes. Then a mud flow came in, that was simply unreal. I am like a spear. I ran to the house and opened the windows. ‘The water has to go,’ I thought.”
Lost everything
“We ran to the lowest suite to help the two men staying there. They had to climb out of the window with their suitcases. Guests from other houses threw open their doors and shouted at us: ‘Come here, come here!’ “From that moment on we let it wash over us. We saw everything floating by. Refrigerators, tables, chairs. We waited for four hours until it got light again. We couldn’t do anything. The water had to go down first.”
“The next day it became clear that we had lost everything. The guests went to other locations or home, we called friends to ask if they would please come pick us up. We are staying in that house now.”
“It is now the third day, we are just shoveling mud. We have no electricity, so the hydrogen vacuum cleaners are running on an emergency generator. It is as if you are working for someone else, that this is not our house. But that is it does.”
Satisfying
“We are extremely grateful for all the help from the lovely people around us. The people here are lovely, but we also receive help from the Netherlands. My sister has set up a donation campaign. We do not yet know what the authorities and insurance will do here. I wonder if everything is as well organized as in the Netherlands.”
The couple hopes to be able to open again in two weeks, partly because they no longer have any income at all. Whether this will succeed remains to be seen. The donation campaign is through this link to find.