"Anyone who has hand and foot should help. Then the high school students filled the sandbags," remembers Wilhelm Ellermann. On the North Sea island of Föhr, everyone has to lend a hand, because the voluntary fire brigade is on the mainland when the Blanke Hans, as the stormy North Sea is called, lashed out against the island's dikes in November 1981. The hurricane has top speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, but that doesn't stop painter Ellermann from capturing the natural spectacle with his camera:"I just couldn't help it."
Highest water level since 1825
At 3.45 meters above normal tide, the highest water level has been measured for over 150 years. But the dykes hold up and nobody gets hurt. The North Friesland storm surge on November 24 caused major damage to the German and Danish North Sea coast, but fortunately it did not reach the extent of the great flood of 1976, when damage amounted to several 100 million marks. Nevertheless, dykes are breaking on the Danish islands of Rømø and Mandø. Sylt also suffers dike breaches, the Hindenburgdamm is severely damaged and the artificial fore-dunes along the entire west coast are washed away.
50 million euros annually for dike protection
Aerial view of the island of Foehr. In the northwest the island of Sylt.Every year, Schleswig-Holstein invests more than 50 million euros in dyke protection, and a good 30 million euros go into strengthening the dykes and other coastal protection measures such as washing up sand in the sea off Sylt. For the past three years, in response to global climate change, the dikes along the coast have been raised by 50 centimeters to withstand the expected sea level rise of 18 to 59 centimeters by the year 2100. Storm surge months are especially January and February. Strong westerly winds with wind forces of over ten and low weather conditions with severe storms can trigger storm surges on the North Sea coast.
Hamburg flood protection systems up to nine meters high
Land under on Grosse Elbstrasse in Hamburg.Things can get critical for Hamburg if a tidal wave cannot drain away again even at low tide due to the pressing north-west wind. Then the next tidal wave piles up on the first. During the storm surge of 1962, a total of 340 people drowned on the German North Sea coast and on the lower reaches of the Weser and Elbe, 315 of them in Hamburg. The Hamburg flood protection systems now have a height of 7.60 meters to nine meters. The dikes on Schleswig-Holstein's west coast are up to 8.80 meters high. The Baltic Sea coast is considered safe from storm surges.