Bad weather devastation continues

Torrential rain has caused extensive damage in parts of the country with the regions of Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Salzburg reportedly the most seriously affected.

Over the weekend many communities were still clearing up the wreckage caused after large volumes of water wash through streets and gardens. Local fire services tackled much of the devastation and in Lower Austria alone fire chiefs said they had been called out in the worst affected regions 700 times involving 304 different fire stations and 4,200 firemen.

Coupled with the heavy rain was also a severe hailstorm that caused extensive damage to property and also badly hit local farmers. In Wieselburg the hailstones were the size of tennis balls and 45 roofs were badly damaged. Fire services helped those that were affected by putting plastic sheeting over the damaged roofs.

In upper Austria there were about 100 emergency calls with situation at Dietach bei Steyr particularly bad where a river burst its banks causing flooding.

And in the city of Salzburg and in the surrounding province there were 47 callouts including toppled trees and electricity lines and flooded cellars. At Strobl am Wolfgangsee (Flachgau) a tree managed to demolish a car.

The bad weather also affected the Nova Rock Festival at Nickelsdorf in Burgenland which had to be cancelled on Friday because of the storm warning. Music lovers were ordered to leave the region because of security fears.

In the end the threatend storm did not arrive but strong winds made many of the stages unusable.