Flood Relief on its Way

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced on Thursday that the federal government would begin transferring the first 100 million euros ($97.8 million) of a 385 million euro ($377.6 million) emergency flood relief package for the flooded eastern and southern parts of the country.

The first money will be available on Friday, Schröder said at a Berlin press conference. Considering the “catastrophic extent of the damages,” however, this may up being just a preliminary measure, he said.

While the overflowing Vltava River in Prague began subsiding on Thursday, Dresden was bracing for worsening conditions as the Elbe River continued to rise. On Friday morning, officials said the river crossed the 9 meter mark, breaking the 8.77 meter mark set by the record floods in the city in 1845.

Much of central Dresden and neighboring smaller towns along the Elbe stood under water on Thursday. Several hundred hospital patients have been evacuated to other towns and the German army has sent a Medevac jet to the area in case further medical evacuations are necessary.

20,000 to be evacuated by Saturday

Officials say that at least 10 people have died in Germany this week from of flood-related causes. And an estimated 20,000 people will be evacuated from their homes in flood-stricken areas of the country by Saturday.

“It will take a major national effort to repair the damage caused,” said Schröder after visiting Saxony to inspect the flood damage. “The whole nation will have to help.”

The emergency relief plan approved by the federal government on Wednesday calls for, among other things, the creation of a credit program with subsidized interest rates; 25 million euros ($24.5 million) for infrastructure damage; and the creation of a 50 million euro ($49 million) program that would give 5,000 unemployed Germans flood clean-up jobs.

Hamburg braces for possible flooding

The flooding is far from over in Germany. In Hamburg, several hundred kilometers to the north of Dresden, police and firefighters are preparing for floods, which officials believe could hit the harbor city by the middle of next week.

German politicians in Brussels have appealed to the European Union for assistance with the flood relief effort, which is expected to cost billions of euros. But the EU, which eliminated its budget for natural catastrophes several years ago, has told politicians from central and eastern Europe not to expect much in the way of assistance.

An estimated 21.7 billion euros ($21.2 billion) earmarked for regional development programs could be reappropriated, the EU said. But more funding will be hard to come by.

The German Red Cross, meanwhile, announced a 1 million euro emergency flood relief program.

While the economic fallout from this week’s flooding is still being tallied, political observers said the catastrophe is doing wonders for Schröder’s re-election effort.

Opportunity for Schröder

“Schröder has been handed a golden opportunity to present himself as a crisis manager,” Dietmar Herz, political scientist at Erfurt University told Reuters. “The public tends to rally around their leaders in times of crises. Schröder got a chance to show what he can do.”

Opposition candidate Edmund Stoiber has come under criticism this week because he only briefly interrupted his vacation to visit flood-affected areas in his home state of Bavaria.

Other European countries continued their own flood-fighting efforts on Thursday. The Slovak capital of Bratislava, which lies along the Danube River, was bracing for the worst flooding in centuries. An estimated 70,000 people were being evacuated.

An estimated 85 people have died from flood-related causes across Europe in the past week.