Is Prague flood-proof?
What lessons were learned from 2002 flood?
Three years after the flood destroyed large areas of Prague, the zoo will finally finish the last repairs by opening
a new exhibit. It is called ‘Water World’. Perhaps the only ones to not understand the joke will be the animals.
The rest of Prague has suffered 36 months of damage and reconstruction after the disaster, and preparing for the
possibility that it might happen again. At the end of July 2005, the city finally tested its new flood prevention
system: 2.5kms of portable aluminum walls designed to protect the city against an 11-meter flood.
Prevention's limits
These flood protection walls needed 500 firefighters and nearly 50 trucks, and took more than half a day to put
in place. The 2002 floods, by contrast, hit the city in a few hours, with residents evacuated in the night due to
the short warning time.
Flood forecasters say they learned a lot from the data collected during the 2002 disaster – but even under the
best conditions, accurately predicting floods is almost impossible.
"Many factors have to be considered if you want to prevent a flood," said one expert from the Czech
Hydrometeorological Institute. "Imagine that the rainwater is still somewhere in the clouds above the Atlantic
or the British Isles. You are trying to predict where exactly it will fall in the Czech Republic — whether a
certain stream will rise, flowing down into a river, and how many centimeters that will be. There are scientific
models for such predictions ... but we still do not know exactly how [some conditions] originate — simply,
there are no miracle prediction."
Rescuing knowledge
At libraries around the country, the floodwaters soaked more than 150,000 books, many of them old and
priceless. To fragile paper, water inflicts damage twice: once when it soaks through the pages and again —
sometimes worse — as the book dries out.
To prevent that, the National Library used a new technique: freezing books to lock the water onto the page so
they could be dried out later, under carefully controlled conditions. For books from the Prague floods, that
meant inventing a new type of evaporation machine.
A short distance away in Josefov, where city elders in the 13th century raised the street level by one floor
because the area flooded so constantly, waters rushed through the Old-New Synagogue and the recently restored
Spanish Synagogue. The 470-year-old Pinkas Synagogue also suffered damage to one of its most revered
features: a wall bearing the names of 80,000 Jewish Holocaust victims.
A neighborhood returns
In nearby Karlín, several buildings collapsed and others became permanently uninhabitable, with more than 40
apartments lost. Total damage to that district approached 8bn Kč (around $330m).
But despite some ongoing damage to the streets, where the cobblestones moved, the area as a whole has
rebounded dramatically, according to spokesman Tomáš Kňourek of the Prague 8 City Hall.
"The [recent] flood emergency exercise offered very good results, and I trust that it reinforced confidence in
Prague citizens that they are a lot more protected these days," Kňourek said. "Another indicator of this
confidence is that investors show great interest in Karlín, where real estate prices have risen higher than prices
before the flood. Prague 8 City Hall leadership is convinced that the quality of life in Karlín is better now than
before the floods."
Zoo upheaval
At the Prague Zoo, where workers evacuated more than 1,000 animals, reconstruction has focused on reducing
the damage if another flood happens in the future.
"There is no way to prevent floods totally, even in the future," said zoo spokeswoman Iva Vilhumová. "At the
moment, we have not been building any permanent solid buildings in the area that can be hit by floods. There
are only light buildings; in case of a new flood, water will flow through them or take them away without
causing further damage."
Zookeepers have also developed emergency plans for evacuating some of their larger animals, many of which
normally require several days of preparation to relocate. "We saved dozens of animals with our bare hands,"
Vilhumová said. "in 2002, we were watching the water level 24 hours a day and had not slept for three days and
three nights in a row."
Zoo workers still had to put several animals to death, including their prized elephant Kadir; like many other
animals, he was paralyzed by fear and refused to move as the waters rose around him. "We are also better
prepared for a possible evacuation of animals that are difficult to evacuate," Vilhumova said, such as hippos,
large birds and primates.
In total, the zoo lost 128 animals, with six more found dead after the waters went down. Among the most
famous deaths was the sea lion Gaston, who swam down the river all the way to Germany before finally being
caught — Gaston died from water pollution and exhaustion as he was transported home.
Metro matters
The Prague metro also suffered extraordinary damage. Water covered 18 metro stations, mostly in the city
center, paralyzing the whole transport system. Repair crews had to remake more than 17 km of metro tracks.
Many 1’000 m2 of muddy surfaces had to be washed, and widespread disinfection was needed, along with
massive architectural repairs and 75kms of new electrical cables.
In total, the flood caused 7bn Kč in damage to the city's transport system. Damage to the rest of the city cost
26bn Kč, while the total damage to the country was 70bn Kč.
Nations around the world gave money to help with repairs, and organizations like the International Red Cross
provided emergency aid. The Red Cross finished its restoration work in May 2005.
Adapted from source: The Prague Post (August 10, 2005)
by Andrew Steven Harris & Peter Kononczuk
Your task is to highlight any information about



Physical damage
Economic damage
Social / cultural damage