Classic cars in Lusatia and the floods in the surrounding area
06/19/2013
A group of classic cars from the surrounding area also attended last Sunday's DTM race at the Eurospeedway Lausitz.
The Eurospeedway is located just 60 km north of Dresden - in the middle of the current flood area of Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Schleswig Hohlstein.
All the towns severely affected by the floods are in the immediate vicinity. While Dresden was spared to some extent, catastrophic conditions prevailed along the Elbe in eastern Germany.
Residential and commercial buildings have been flooded for weeks. Many livelihoods were destroyed in one fell swoop. Insurance companies held back after 2002 and hardly offered any protection in flood-prone areas.
Perhaps the car is not necessarily the most important thing at this moment, but I would still like to raise the question of how many classic cars or cultural assets in general were destroyed.
I remember 1997, when my own residential community was hit by water and within minutes a third of my photo archive was destroyed and a friend's Lancia Stratos was flattened on the ceiling of the underground garage filled with muddy water.
You never know how many vehicles are destroyed after such disasters. The effort involved in restoring these cars is equivalent to a total restoration, and this effort is not always worthwhile. What's more, the focus is primarily on vital matters.
The DTM showed its solidarity and presented three donation cheques for 100,000 euros each to towns particularly affected by the floods. Olaf Raschke, Mayor of Meissen, Klaus-Peter Hanke, Mayor of Pirna, and Michael Oecknigk, Mayor of Herzberg, received the checks from the three DTM drivers Timo Scheider (Audi), Timo Glock (BMW) and Christian Vietoris (Mercedes).
