One year after the great flood. Stories that stay

A year ago, southwestern Poland trembled under the onslaught of a wall of water. In September 2024, intense rainfall – ranging from 300 to more than 400 mm – brought as much rain as usually falls for several months. A Mediterranean air mass, dubbed the Genoese low, collided with cool air coming in from the Atlantic and caused a catastrophe. Lower and Upper Silesia and the Opole region felt it most – rivers flooded violently. On the Nysa Klodzka in Klodzko, the water level reached almost 8 meters, 1.5 meters higher than the 1997 record.

That’s why I wrote a column now, on the anniversary of the tragedy. Not to present dry data, but to give voice to those who still live in the shadow of those days, although the water has physically subsided. This text is an attempt at a literary approximation of everyday life punctuated by nostalgia for a home that has slipped away. Because a flood is an experience that does not end with the tide – it stays in people, in walls, in memory.

The house I didn’t want

Once again I wake up drenched in sweat. The body knows before I even summon the thought. There I am again, on that night. Water. Fear. The silence that wasn’t there, but now comes, louder than a scream.

At first I thought to get out of here. As far away as possible, as fast as possible. Where they don’t know the word flood. But now that I see another sunny day rising, I don’t know. I ask myself: why? Will another night like this happen again in my lifetime?

After all, here I have everything. Family. Friends. A school for the children. Mrs. Krysia at the grocery store, who always puts away poppy seed cakes for me. Maybe all I need to do is protect myself better? Maybe someone will finally take responsibility for this? Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t be the one to get out, but they should do something?

Why should I be the one to move out? Why me and not those who decided? Will this tenement be torn down? After all, it has been standing here since… I don’t even know since when, but after all, since forever.

Terlakova says in advance that she has had enough. That she’s moving out, that she can’t sleep. Mrs. Halinka – the neighbor from across the street – as tough as ever. She declares: over my dead body. Today it sounds too blunt for me. Because Mrs. Cecilia I knew and liked. What a tragedy. She drowned. Drowned in a flood. Who has heard of such a death? I don’t want to know the details. Never.

There is supposed to be another meeting at the municipality today. They are supposed to say what our options are. A word of official jargon. Options I can have, choosing between bread and rolls. I am torn, angry, bitter. But I know the truth – it’s powerlessness that consumes me. When it comes, it gets cold. I feel the deadly chill from the walls seep into my bones. I don’t tell anyone about it, they won’t worry about me.

When I think about something else, it’s better. But now I don’t have time to think. Before winter, we have to hurry. The kids have to have a Christmas tree. This is the only thing that keeps me upright. What makes me act and not just wait in fear. How much I wish I could turn back time. How much I wish it had never happened. I try to think about the future. I keep repeating to myself that it will be okay. So many people have helped us. We got so much from strangers. Because – as they say – where there is poverty, there is harmony. Thank you, Virgin, for this sense of national unity in disasters and experiences. In the name of the Father and the Son.

Today we are going to this meeting with my Johnny. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he would like to get out? But he doesn’t say anything – he probably doesn’t want me to think he’s weak. I don’t think so. I’ve seen how he saved our possessions, how he helped his neighbors. He is strong. But water can break anyone.

Who would have thought. After all, it’s just water.

And on TV they talk about the drought. About the fact that the grain has not risen, that the crop will be poor. That everything will go up in the stores. Ironically. Some are drowning, others are drying up. Julka, my daughter, said that the teacher was explaining to them why the flood came. And that the climate is changing. I don’t know about it, but I feel that something is wrong. That it shouldn’t be like this, that something should be done about it. That’s what we have the state for, officials. Let them worry about it. After all, they live off our blood money.

I didn’t want to go to this meeting. Because why, no one will come and I will be there alone. However, I went. Let them hear my voice. I’m not going to remain silent. So much fear, so many tears.

I was surprised. The hall was full. People in the back were standing on stools. Everyone wanted to see, to hear. It started calmly, but strangely. The water official said he sympathized, but it was not their decision that the tanks were not built. At first I didn’t understand. Only then did I remember Terlakowska telling Mrs. Halinka once that six or seven years ago people were outraged at a meeting on evictions. At the time I thought it was crazy. Displacement? In a free country? And today I hear that it’s not the same as it used to be. That for land, for a house – they pay. That with this money you can buy a new house. It’s easy for them to say.

But a person begins to think if there is enough of that money. Does he want to leave the place he has known since childhood? Does he want a new house now that the old one is everything?

I’m not going to get upset again. I need to think. Just when? I’m about to over-salt my dinner if I don’t free myself from this flurry of thoughts. I was hoping that this meeting would change something. But no. People started shouting at the officials, then they shouted one at another. I got a headache. I had to leave. After that it was just a rush. You have to make it in time before the frost.

I don’t know what we would have done without the help of the soldiers. They came, hauled away the mud, helped plaster. Apparently they are not allowed to do such things. But they did. Good guys, after all, this is the Polish army. I think warmly of them. How else? I cooked for them, Jasiek worked with them. The children watched and learned that all was not yet lost. Christmas was peaceful.

Epilogue. Memory of water

I walk barefoot. I, who used to never take off my thick wool socks even in the summer, because the cold always lurked under the boards. Now the floor under my feet is warm. Stoneware, which I once thought of as something cold and dead, warms like ember stones on a summer day.

I didn’t know warmth could sound like that. The sound of my bare feet in the still empty living room reminds me of a heartbeat – unhurried, sure, new. Everything has changed. And so have I. From my big toe to the tips of my hair. I feel calm. Or maybe just tired of fighting, I finally accepted what came?

They succeeded,” someone would say, looking from the sidelines and measuring success by square meters. And I know my own. The decision was not an easy one. To abandon the familiar in favor of the possible. A new place, new people. Different trees, different shadows at midday. No poppy seed cookies at the corner store, no Mrs. Krysia, who put them away for me before I could ask.

But we have a small house. A house that we had to build not only brick by brick, but with the hope that it would really be a home. The compensation was just the beginning – Jan worked harder than ever. With his own hands – with that quiet determination that makes everything seem simpler, though it’s not so at all.

The children at first looked at the new walls with indifferent eyes. As if someone had uprooted them and made them grow on concrete. But time, like water, seeped through the walls. After six months, they started running around the garden, arguing over the swing, laughing with the neighbors.

We built something on that void. Something that now is the feeling of a warm floor underfoot and the sound of children’s laughter coming from the kitchen. I still sometimes close my eyes and see the old corners, the wall of the tenement with the plaster falling off, Mrs. Krysia’s store window. But I don’t cry. Because I know that despite everything, I am. We are.

And that someday, after a peaceful sleep, I will be able to say – this place also taught me to love.

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MAIN PHOTO: Jacek Halicki/Wikipedia