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In my hometown there was a regular flooding about every ten years, that put around one meter of water in the middle of the town. So they built a ‚big‘ (for that town) Damm to keep the water away.
They did make it just high enough to prevent a flooding for all but the floods that happen every 100 years.
Should that particularly high flooding come though, the Damm will break and the town will be gone.
That Damm is now about 50-80 years old, and floods will likely become worse with the climate catastrophe.
I think nobody knows what will happen if that ultra high flood occurs.
In 2002 Germany had one of its worst floods in centuries. Some towns were literally washed away, dozens of people were killed, billions in damages.
The federal and state governments paid for extensive flood protection programmes after that.
A friend of mine lived in a town who voted against it. The logic of these stupid yockels? The flood was a once in a century flood,so they should be good now. And a flood wall would impede the view, their historic downtown center wouldn’t be as nice anymore,etc. So they refused a flood protection system the community wouldn’t have to pay a dime for.
In 2013 there was a far worse flood. But damages while still substantial were far smaller than 2002. Because of the better protection in most places. The town my friend once lived in? It got flooded the second time, sued by its neighbouring towns because they got flooded from there.
There are a number of legends surrounding the pirate Klaus Störtebeker, who was active in the 14th century. The most popular one is probably that when he and his crew were facing execution, he made a deal with the mayor of Hamburg that if he manages to walk past any of his fellow prisoners after his beheading, they’d be spared. His headless body supposedly walked past eleven pirates until the executioner made him stumble. The mayor did not keep his word and all 73 members of the crew were killed.
There’s a large cave dubbed “Satan’s Cave.” Compasses always point into the cave. When the NYC reservoir system was created, the municipality bought all of the homes in the low altitude towns. They then dammed up the area and let the rainwater collect, flooding the neighborhoods, houses and all. The bottom of the cave filled with water, and began billowing cool water vapor all year round.
It turns out the cave is one of the largest known lodestone deposits. Lodestone is naturally magnetic, which is why compasses always point into the cave. The cave originally had a massive drop shortly after the entrance, that led into one of the aforementioned towns. When the town was flooded, the reservoir water piped up the cool cave, causing the water vapor to be perpetually emitted.
Well shit, I grew one town over from there. Pretty sure that’s right by our cliff diving spot on the Croton Falls Reservoir. I never went in it most kids in highschool knew some “facts” about that mine.
