From: Cees Grol

Dear Rick.

The town of Valkenburg is getting attention of late for two reasons;

The first reason is a dramatic rainfall and huge shower, which lasted for many days and was so intense that the little river (the Geul), was quickly rising to record height. In the lower downtown area, many shop-owners, hotels and houses barricaded their entrances to try to avoid that the water would entered the rooms: the public services were disrupted and people started to fill sandbags.

Although in the end, the water just did not spread into the city center, many basements and the lower cellars were flooded. The police and firemen assisted wherever possible to pump the water out of the many basements.

As the Geul-water constantly pushed against the quays and bridges (the water could not pass the bridges smoothly any more), some bridges were closed as they became unsafe for traffic. It appears that two or three bridges must be replaced or thoroughly repaired.

In the lower Geul valley, a big area of lowlands and agricultural lands were flooded but this did not disrupt the public life. The water disappeared as quickly as it arrived (a typical phenomena for rain rivers), leaving a town where many repairs needed to be done the coming weeks.

The second reason is a more positive story.

From October 5 to October 11, 1998, the greater Valkenburg area is the scene of the World championship roadcycling. The cycling sport is very popular in Europe (think about the Tour de France). Hundreds of thousand of spectators are expected, television crews booked the majority of the hotel rooms. For the Valkenburg people, ordinary life and businesses are changing quite a lot: the people are getting permits to enter their own houses, and trunk roads are closed as these are used by the cyclists. The races will end on October 11.

For your information, a special web page has been opened about this event: see the page http://www.limbu.nl/wk98 where information is available both in English and in Dutch.

Best regards,…. Cees.