For some of the residents of Lewin Brezski, the only way out now is by boat.
Around 80% of the homes in the southwestern Polish town have been flooded by water bursting out of raging rivers with little warning even after the rain has stopped.
In the streets, cars are submerged so only their roofs are showing.
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Poland hit by flooding
Tadeusz Lewczak says water has filled his home to the ceiling.
“My children have lost everything,” he tells me, “There wasn’t any time. They told us there would be water, but we didn’t know it would be so high.”
Military vehicles scour the streets looking for those still trapped.
A drone view shows a flooded area by Nysa Klodzka river in Lewin Brzeski, Poland. Pic: Reuters
Some have managed to scramble to safety, watching the scene from roofs or scaffolding.
But we meet others, like Ludmilla and her family, wheeling suitcases out of town.
They are refugees from Ukraine who came to Poland when the war broke out only to lose their home for a second time. They grabbed what they could and left.
In the streets, cars are submerged so only their roofs are showing
“It’s very hard,” she says, as her three-year-old son clings to her. “We are adults, but my little one will remember all of this.”
In Poland, a disaster has been declared, but Storm Boris has left large parts of central Europe submerged, causing havoc in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Austria.
Across the region, at least 22 people have died.
A woman walks through a destroyed bridge in the aftermath of flooding by the Biala Ladecka River in Ladek Zdroj, Poland. Pic: Reuters
In many places, the army has been drafted in to help as authorities do what they can to hold back the waters.
In the city of Wroclaw, men, women, and children help fill sandbags to line the streets.
They’re not taking any chances after a catastrophic flood cut off the area in 1997, marking one of Poland’s worst natural disasters of the 20th century.
A drone view shows the flood-affected area following heavy rainfall in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Pic: Reuters
At the sandbag station, we meet Dagna Toporowska Chmiel, who lived through that flood.
She remembers vividly the people stranded and left homeless and the lives lost. She’s hoping the defences hold this time.
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She said: “Barriers have been overcome, so we know that some incidents may happen and that can still cause a lot of damage, like in the past. So, I think the older generation is very worried.”
An aerial picture of the village of Venek and the swollen Danube River near Gyor, Hungary. Pic: AP
And the people of Wroclaw aren’t the only ones waiting for the floods as river levels are forecast to continue rising in Hungary in the coming days.
