Frankfurt: or how I learned to survive the Bomb
The recent bomb evacuation in the Westend area of Frankfurt is still receiving tons of ink throughout Germany and beyond. And why shouldn't it? In Westend, 65,000 people needed to be evacuated by 8 a.m. on Sunday, September 3, including senior, disabled, and hospitalized citizens, which alone would cause a two and a half hour delay in the proceedings. Many refused to leave their homes, which hardly helped matters.
Just as an aside: our little family evacuated itself with time to spare. According to the authorities, this was the biggest evacuation in post WW II German history.
So what happened? A bomb (aka an 'ordnance') was discovered on Wednesday at a construction site. This was identified as a British air mine, two tons heavy, 70% of its mass high-grade explosives that could take out a city block of your choice. To make matters worse, this wasn't just any neighborhood, but Westend, where there's the Goethe Universität, one of Germany's most prominent colleges. Also, say hello to Ginni, the asparagus, aka the second highest TV tower in Germany. There's the American contingency housed in the Carl Schurz Siedlung north of the college campus. And, last but not least, let's not forget the Central Bank with some 70 billion dollars' worth of gold reserves. An evacuation was definitely in order.
That said, discovering these bombs is not front-page news anymore. In fact, only the day before in nearby Koblenz, a similar evacuation was performed, only that the 45,000 people evacuated actually constituted half of that city's population. This was an American bomb and, although far lighter, supposedly the more dangerous of the two. In all, two thousand tons of bombs are discovered each year in Germany. Surprised? It shouldn't when you consider that almost three million tons of bombs were dropped over Germany during the war. Repeat that again. Three million tons. Yikes. At 2,000 tons recovered per year and counting, that also tells me there were quite a few duds among the lot.
We decided our Sunday would not go to waste and made our way to our garden, several backpacks, gallons of water, and homework assignments in tow. Get the kids out of the house and let's pick some plums, blackberries, and raspberries, shall we? Can't mow the lawn, that's a no-no in Catholic, uh, actually more Atheist Germany, come to think of it. Prune the bushes, pull some weeds, plant some seeds for the next lettuce batch. Everybody take a nap, read a paper, and chill.
Eventually, we'd return at 10 p.m., and we were lucky to get that. The ramps to the Autobahn 66 were still blocked, so we snuck in through the back door via the Autobahn 5, just in time for the official green light by the authorities for all evacuees to return. I'm guessing the kids might be a little tired in the morning, but it was still a productive day, which we had all hoped for.
As an aside, I missed the only debate between the two major German chancellor candidates, Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz. Although I haven't heard about the specifics, something tells me I didn't miss much.
In the end, kudos to the city of Frankfurt for diffusing the bomb. Good practice, too, I'd say.
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