Germany Doesn't Suck

On 6 Nov, a bomb was found at Zentralplatz, a square in the center of town near Old Town. It turns out that it was a 500 kg bomb left over from when the British bombed my town in World War 2 (apparently the Americans used 400 kg bombs) on a building site. It was eventually determined that there was a problem with the fuse and it couldn’t be disarmed like others that have been found were (my town was heavily bombed during the war and one or two are found most years).

Here’s an awful photo of it (I couldn’t get the camera not to focus on the fence directly in front of me).

So, a radius around the bomb of 750 metres is being evacuated. My city is quite small and that encompasses all of the downtown area (including Old Town), which is why they’ve decided to do it on a Sunday. To give you an idea, here’s a map (click to enlarge):

The red circle is 750 metres radius and the blue line represent the area that is being evacuated. I live near the Hauptbahnhof – just outside of the blue line.

The evacuation is being handled with German calmness. The Ordnungsamt went door to door on Thursday handing out notices (I was in the office at school when they got to us) that have the info on the front and the map on the back, assuming that everyone in the evacuation area would know to get out in time. There haven’t been any public flyers posted on hotel doors, stores or across on banners across streets. The just assume that everyone will have received the fliers and know to get out.

My city will be completely shut down today other than the Bomb Squad as the bomb is defused. The football game has rescheduled for Tuesday evening, the Carnival celebration was moved to today, traffic will be stopped (I assume on the rivers too), etc from 9h – 14h(ish) – (with the idiotic way things work in my city, everyone expects it to take longer).

Where will the people go? What will they do? Most of the movie theatres are in the radius and there’s only one in the outer-districts. There aren’t any shopping malls outside the radius (the closest is probably in Bonn), but it wouldn’t help if there were due to the fact that it’s Sunday. I assume that most will venture into the mountain regions around the city (since that here most of the people that live here come from), but what about those that don’t?

Four of my colleagues live inside the radius. One is in Bavaria for the weekend and another is visiting her parents on the Mosel (the timing was coincidental in both cases) . One has a German girlfriend whose family lives in an outer district of the city and they’ll be going there.

What about American Colleague?

Where will he go?

Invite him to my place? I would if I was going to be here (I’ve had plans to be out of town today for a few weeks now). The school? It’s inside the evacuation zone. Plus, it’s not like the weather is going to be good so he can pack a picnic and spend the day outside sitting in the grass and enjoying the sun (our abysmal weather continues).

What will he do?

What will others like him do?

As mentioned, I have plans for today, but due to the fact that the evacuation starts at 9h, I’ll probably be leaving on a train before that time because it’s unclear if trains will be running during the evacuation. I got up at Much-Earlier-Than-I-Had-Wanted-O’Clock and am about to head off to the train station to see if trains will be running during the evacuation or not (DB didn’t know yesterday).

Additional info for those that can read German:

Bombenfund am Zentralplatz

(07./08.11.07) Am 06. November wurde bei Bauarbeiten am Zentralplatz gegen ca. 18:00 Uhr eine 500kg-Fliegerbombe gefunden. Das Amt für Brand- und Katastrophenschutz teilt hierzu folgendes mit: