While it is still not clear how many human lives the flood of the century will cost in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the clean-up work is already in full swing.
Large parts of the infrastructure in the affected areas have been severely damaged in some cases.
Hundreds of houses can no longer be saved, bridges collapsed, roads have become impassable, pipes burst.
The Bundeswehr, technical aid organization, energy producers and telecommunications companies tried desperately on Friday to repair at least the most necessary things, to clear rubble and garbage out of the way.
Two essential prerequisites are still missing: electricity and a functioning cellular network.
Bernd Freytag
Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.
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Jonas Jansen
Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.
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Renate Richardt actually wanted to search Google to find out how she could bind the heating oil that is a good meter high in her garden.
Unfortunately, she too has no network and until the power comes back, she was told, it could take up to fourteen days.
Richardt lives in Blessem, a district of Erftstadt southwest of Cologne particularly affected by the flooded Erft.
Compared to many from the town, she was lucky that her house was still standing and only the basement was flooded.
Entire streets were swept away by the floods on Friday night and there were deaths.
Richardt's son, who is in the armed forces, comes by and brings his generator and a pump with him, but she still doesn't know where to pump it.
The energy supplier Westnetz, which belongs to the Essen-based Dax group Eon, reported on demand on Friday afternoon that there were still 102,000 unsupervised customers in the Westnetz area.
The previous evening it had been around 165,000.
The employees are still in constant use, but are still struggling with the weather conditions during their repair work.
Eon wants to reimburse a flat rate of 200 euros
Customers who now connect electric dryer devices and water pumps and thus increase their consumption, Eon wants to reimburse a flat rate of 200 euros for each affected apartment.
Westnetz employees are also called upon to help.
Each of them is given a budget of 3,000 euros, for example to borrow or buy building materials or machines that are necessary for cleanup work.
According to Telekom, masses of water and debris in the Ahr valley and the Eifel have caused major damage to the fixed network infrastructure. This applies in particular to the remote technology, i.e. the familiar gray boxes on the streets and sidewalks. The first damage has been repaired and an emergency supply is being worked on. But the general overview is still missing. “There are still places that we cannot or are not allowed to go to,” the company said when asked. In addition, there are places "in which we have to build a completely new infrastructure, since entire streets with our lines have been torn away there."
Central switching centers are also affected by floods in small numbers - but here the main problem is in most cases also a lack of electricity. There are only emergency power generators in the most important nodes. The main problem with mobile communications is the lack of power supply to the antenna locations. "We are working on this together with the regional energy suppliers". In the Ahr valley and the Eifel, many locations are "on air" again - but there are still interruptions in the power supply. “As far as possible, we make do with emergency power generators. Wherever possible and necessary, the company says it can ensure a “mobile special supply” via the so-called disaster recovery team. In the Ahr valley and the Eifel, a large part of the mobile communications sites are functional again.The fixed network is still disrupted over a large area. In individual cases, it could take weeks before the disruption could be eliminated.