Belgian cities combat the consequences of Eunice Storm

News

In times of troubles, governments and local administration are often the first ones to act. In the past, many serious natural disasters have gone through Europe. Storm Eunice, which hit Great Britain and Belgium, is the latest one. Now, the Belgian government has enacted emergency services in order to repair damage that has been done.

Hundreds of clean-up and repair operations have started during the last week, right after the Eunice Storm has ended. With wind speed reaching nearly 135 km/h, many roofs, downing trees and structures have been damaged and these operations aim at repairing everything.

In Ghent, a storm heavily damaged the rooftop of local football stadium, Ghelamco Arena, which resulted in postponing of a number of upcoming matches. This is a great hit to the local tourist economy and the local administration is keen on repairing and enabling the normal functioning of the stadium.

In the capital city of Brussels, there were around 500 calls for interventions by local services. About 176 of these emergencies are already being solved, while the city administration is preparing solutions for the rest. 

Fire Service Spokesmen of Brussels, Walter Derieuw stated: “Because of the bad weather, many operations were delayed. This was a measure in order to ensure safety of the staff”. The continuation of the work started as soon as there were beneficial weather factors. In order to maximize the repair effort, all parks and gardens will be closed, one example being also a parking lot near Soignes Forest.

In Picardy, located in Wallon, emergency services got around 600 calls. Most of them were quickly resolved, but around 100 to 200 emergencies are still being processed and are waiting to be finished.

Mayor of Liège Willy Demayer established a crisis center in local Police Headquarters. This action enabled citizens to call one office in order to ask for help or report damage. Through unified and consolidated effort, various interventions were already conducted and resolved. In Brabant, the fire service resolved nearly all interventions, with only around 50 of them still unresolved.

The national road network had also been heavily damaged. This resulted in temporary closure of some parts of roads, including National Highway 93 at Villers-la-Ville and National Highway 275 by Court-Saint-Etienne. 

Besides roads, the train network was also damaged. Trains that connect Belgium and Netherlands continued working normally, since emergency services focused on repairing this important part of infrastructure. National commuters for the train network quickly arranged shuttles, in order to enable relative normal functioning of the system. The repairs will be finished quickly and the predictions are that functionality of the network will be back by the end of this week. (photo credit: Brussels Fire Brigade)