Painful wait for elderly forced to flee from Europe's worst flood in a decade
15,000 told to leave their homes east of the Elbe as water levels rise across Central Europe
A group of elderly Germans resting in a school sports hall turned disaster evacuation centre are waiting out the worst flood to ever hit their city.
"The hardest thing is not knowing what to do," said Brigitte Ilsmann, 88, who has spent her life on the banks of the Elbe river. "You sit on a bench, talking with strangers and trying to kill time."
You don’t sleep well on a hard bed when you are 88 and there is a lot of noise
Evacuated from her care home, the old lady who moves with a walker took refuge in the facility where the Red Cross has set up cots with grey blankets and offers thermoses of coffee, baskets full of apples and biscuits.
Sitting on the cot assigned to her on arrival, Gisela Suhau, 77, recalled being scared when she saw the muddy flood water gush into her basement and turn the streets outside into rivers.
"We've never seen anything like it," she said - even in 2002 when "the floods of the century" hit the region in what was formerly communist East Germany.
"They told us to leave, so we took the bare essentials and came here," she said, adding that staying was not an option. "We had no electricity, you can't cook."
Up to 150 people can find refuge in the gymnasium, but the need is far greater. Authorities on Sunday urged 15,000 people to evacuate in areas east of the Elbe, where the water now reaches the tree tops.