By Agnieszka Bugala, OSV News

STRONIE SLASKIE, Poland – During the week of Sept. 15-21, all eyes were on the Oder River in western Poland – one of the country’s two largest rivers. And efforts were underway to save the major cities through which the river flows.

But ultimately it was the tributaries – small mountain rivers called Nysa Klodzka, Biala Ladecka, Bóbr and Morawka – that largely devastated the picturesque tourist region in southwestern Poland during the terrible floods caused by the torrential rains of Storm Boris on 13-15 September.

But as Poland braced for its worst disaster since 1997, when the so-called “millennium flood” killed 114 people in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany, volunteers and aid workers, including vast amounts of supplies and money from Catholic charities, poured into the region to ease the pain of people who had lost everything.

According to satellite data, about 20,000 buildings may have been damaged.

“It wasn’t a flood, it was a tsunami,” residents of flooded villages told OSV News on September 21 as they tried to comprehend the extent of the damage to their homes, only some of which survived the waves over the weekend of September 14-15.

The greatest and still unassessed damage was caused by the rupture of the dam in Stronie Slaskie. The dam, which is over a century old, had previously effectively protected the areas near the Morawka River from possible flooding. In 1997, it fulfilled its task and saved the town and the surrounding villages from total inundation. However, on September 15, it gave way under the weight of a torrential flood.

Stornie Slaskie, Ladek Zdrój and the surrounding villages were flooded by 53 million cubic feet of water. Since many villages had been without electricity for two days, the information did not reach them. People expected the river to flood, but a dam burst was unimaginable.

“Some people believed in this dam more than in God the Lord,” a Stornie Slaskie resident told OSV News, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Many, however, say that God saved them, even though they lost everything. In fear and with no certainty about the next day, they hug their children and say with conviction that the most important thing is that they were able to escape, that the walls can be rebuilt and mud and mud removed, but that the loss of loved ones is the worst.

“We sought shelter with our family. They live higher up, and there was never water there during the floods. But when the wave arrived here after the dam burst, there was water everywhere. We took the children and fled even higher into the forest,” said Natalia, a Catholic mother of two who only wanted to give her first name.

On Sept. 21, she was pushing a wheelbarrow full of damaged, wet equipment — all that was left of the inside of her house. She said that when things calmed down and the water receded, she and her husband didn’t want to go down because they were sure their house had been swept away by the current, too. But the house survived “miraculously,” she said.

“Although the ground floor was flooded, the water did not destroy the house. It took everything from us – the wooden playground that my husband built with his own hands for the children, the pool and the garden,” she told OSV News.

“But we have a house… and thank God we are still alive,” she said.

“What happened here is indescribable,” said Father Krzysztof Pelech, pastor of St. Nicholas’ parish in Radochów, just 12 kilometers from the dam in Stronie Slaskie.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” he told OSV News, still exhausted after sleepless days.

“After a while, the side door was ripped out and water entered the house,” said Jan from Oldrzychowice Klodzkie, 18 kilometers from the dam. He would only give his first name.

The water that destroyed the houses in Radochów carried parts of them as far as Oldrzychowice. A local resident found his cement mixer 1.9 kilometers from his house.

The landscape of the cities where thousands of tourists spend their summer and winter holidays is unrecognizable. Where there was once a forest, there is now a meadow. Electricity pylons lie like broken matches on the side of the road. The door of a garage has wrapped itself around a surviving tree. Cars that were not washed away by the current stand in the alleys like crushed cans.

Many houses are missing. The water has torn them to pieces, exposing parts of a dining room with a set table and a bedroom. But worst of all, residents say, is that traces of their identity are lost forever – photo albums, family china and centuries-old memorabilia.
Father Pelech still had the flood wave after the dam burst in his mind.

“After the service, I went to the water to look because I heard the water level starting to drop. I was standing on the steps on the side and then I heard a strange, incredible sound, a sound – I can’t describe it,” he told OSV News.

“And then I saw water, more and more water. … First the garbage flowed, then the trees, getting bigger and bigger, and suddenly cars, one after the other … cars in the river! … I stood there paralyzed, I don’t know how long it lasted, I think it was a quarter of an hour at most,” said the parish priest, adding bitterly: “Nobody warned us. Not even a siren sounded.”

Despite the fatigue and the pain of loss, there are also glimmers of hope.

“Help is coming from all over Poland. I just got a call from a representative of the Legia Warsaw football fans. They want to help the residents of my parish. How did they hear about us?” asked Father Pelech, shrugging his shoulders.

Help for those affected is needed now and will continue to be needed for a long time. In Radochów alone, where around 600 people live, up to 10 houses have to be demolished. More than 80% of the residents are affected.

The Sunday collection in Polish churches on September 22nd went entirely to Caritas Poland for flood relief. Although the amount of the collection is still unknown, Poles have already donated millions for flood relief through the Catholic Church’s largest charity.

The latest data released on September 20 lists what Caritas has purchased: 110 generators, 150 dehumidifiers (another 200 have been ordered), 1,500 shovels, 1,000 brushes, 300 rakes, 300 buckets, 200 wheelbarrows, 1,100 travel bottles, 1,000 burners and more than 400 pressure washers.

“Fundraising and aid efforts must not stop, they must continue, because billions are needed to rebuild houses, health centers, schools, roads and bridges,” Marcin Majewski, spokesman for Caritas Poland, told OSV News.

It is not easy to reach the flooded villages. Broken bridges and damaged road surfaces make it difficult to provide aid to those in need. Nevertheless, people come from all over Poland.

On September 21, three groups of young people from nearby Wrocław volunteered to help. The Phileo youth group and the Girl Scouts of the Federation of European Scouts from the Holy Trinity parish came to Radochów with Father Jakub Deperas. The youth ministry of the Archdiocese of Wrocław, led by Father Piotr Rozpedowski, also rushed to help. The groups consisted of 120 people. The young people reached the needy by bus and 14 cars. They brought gifts collected in the parishes and helped with disaster relief.

“We cannot stay in warm houses when people have lost everything. We have to move and help,” said Father Deperas.

Tomasz Wolny, a Polish television star and devout Catholic, announced on his social media on September 20 that he, along with a group of Franciscan brothers and clergy, had set off for Ladek Zdrój to help flood victims.

“After cleaning the houses of the mud of the massacre, heavy equipment is now needed and that is what is happening in Ladek,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on September 22. “Help will be needed for weeks to come,” he said.