Severe Weather and Devastating Floods Across Tyrol

Tyrol.

Innsbruck, June 3. The reports subsequently received regarding the devastation and damage caused between May 27 and June 1 in various parts of the country by heavy downpours and floods sound very lamentable throughout. The Wipptal, Pustertal, and Etsch Valley, up to the border of Italy, have suffered extraordinarily, and the water level in many districts almost equaled that of August 27, 1817. – The violent overflowing of the Sill near Innsbruck and the devastation and destruction of property and buildings caused here have already been reported in an earlier issue of the Bothe von Tirol, etc.; it is only noted subsequently that through this event the part of the Fürstenweg from the imperial-royal military supply office to the Pradl Bridge was flooded over a stretch of 97 fathoms in length. – The Sill raged even more destructively, swollen by the many torrents and mountain streams that had grown to an extraordinary height, inward from Innsbruck, and the latter showed their destructive effects particularly in the i. r. district court of Matrei, and within it on the Ellbögen road, where four landslides occurred and blocked the road. – In the same way, the side streams along the main postal and commercial road from Innsbruck to Italy raged, raising the water level of the Sill to 10–12 feet. – The damage thereby caused to the i. r. treasury and to private individuals through devastation on the road, paths, bridges, and properties is very considerable. The imperial-royal district judge of Matrei, von Ottenthal, the actuary Mr. Margreiter, and the i. r. forestry master v. Sybold deserve undivided praise for attempting and preventing greater misfortune everywhere with their subordinate staff during this time of need, as did the mayor of Matrei, Alois Stadler. – Inward from the Brenner road, toward Pustertal and Brixen, in the district court of Sterzing, the same downpours caused all torrents to swell, and these caused such flooding that the notorious Sterzing Marsh (Sterzinger-Moos) was flooded over a stretch of 500 fathoms, and the ill-reputed, raging Fallerbach covered a road length of 50 fathoms. The Eisack and the Rienz broke violently out of their banks, covering 400 Tagmahd of meadows and fields with mud and sand up to the border of the circle. Equally sad sound the reports from the circle on the Etsch, in Trent and Rovereto; the exceeding of the usual water level of the Eisack, Talfer, and Etsch by many feet threatened all neighboring regions with the greatest danger, and the wild, rushing Passer (the Passeier stream) raged, as usual, storming down the valley toward the bed of the Etsch, filling it with water and gravel so that the Etsch was forced to overflow. No one in this area remembered such a high water level. In the Etsch or Bozen circle, retaining walls, long stretches of road, and ground were washed away; near Neumarkt, the road was rendered completely impassable by the Auernbach; near Meran, the right approach to the Sinich bridge was undermined; private bridges were swept away at Burgstall, Pfatten, Riglen, and Gmund. The picture of devastation unfolded more and more from hour to hour; at its confluence into the Etsch, the Passer damaged the hydraulic structures, the Eisack below Bozen damaged the new fascine structure insofar as it was not completed, and the Etsch destroyed the landing pavement at Branzoll and the dikes built along it at Pfatten, etc. »From Terlan to the Trent circle boundary, everything was under water;« this is the most faithful picture of the flooding. It topped all older dikes along the Etsch over their entire length, and of the new dikes, only that of the Leit canal, of Neumarkt, and near Kurtinig remained untopped and unbroken. – In the circle of Trent, and namely in Valsugana, a cloudburst on May 27 caused great devastation. The damage caused to the post road, to bridges, to fields lying in the plain, and even in and around the towns of Borgo and Castelnuovo is very great; the stretch of road from No. 112 ½ (or Roncegno) to 117 ½ (or Ospitaletto), full 5,000 Vienna fathoms long, almost no longer exists; it has been so washed away or buried partly by old mountain torrents and partly by newly formed mudslides that from the Langanza torrent onward it is scarcely passable even with a strong horse and then only via a detour; from Borgo to below la Chieppena, communication is completely cut off, as all bridges have been removed or isolated and silted up, such as the Langanza Bridge, Ceggio Bridge, etc. The lower part of the city of Trent and the entire valley floor were submerged under water by the swelling and overflowing of the Etsch and mountain torrents, and within human memory the Fersina torrent had never swollen so high and roared along so wildly foaming and raging as on May 27, though up to its mouth into the Etsch it stayed within the newly built dikes and damaged neither bank protections nor fields and meadows. All around Trent, beneficent nature seemed about to dissolve into destruction, and roaringly the mountains fermented, threatening devastation through general dissolution. May 27 of this year completely equaled in its devastations August 27, 1817, indeed in several areas it even surpassed it.