What to do if a dam fails

Official updatesLU-Alert · RTL, 100.7 · 112

Do this now

Leave at once when the authorities tell you to, by the route they give. Take your grab bag, medicines, documents and phone, and nothing else.
Get to high ground, well above the valley floor and away from the river. Go on foot if the roads are blocked. Do not wait to see the water.
Never drive or walk through moving water. Status: Verified of it can knock you over, and Status: Verified can carry a car away.
If the water arrives before you can leave, go to the highest floor and make yourself visible at a window. Never go into the cellar, an underground car park or an underpass.
Follow LU-Alert messages and the radio on Status: Verified. A siren warning means get to safety and follow the official channels. See Siren is sounding.
Call Status: Verified if someone is in danger. Otherwise keep the lines free: send texts, not calls.
Help a neighbour who cannot leave alone, if it does not hold you up.

If you live, work or camp below a dam such as the Upper Sûre dam, ask your commune whether a failure would reach your street.
The official flood maps on inondations.lu and the geoportail show river floods. A dam failure can reach further and arrive faster, so do not rely on them alone.
Plan a route on foot to high ground from your home, your work and the children's school. Note it, and any dam nearby, in your household plan.

In Luxembourg, warnings come through LU-Alert (phone alerts, text messages and the app), the sirens, the radio and infocrise. Check Alerts and sirens.
France uses a special horn near some of its dams. That is a French signal: the Luxembourg sources we checked describe no special dam signal here. Do not wait for a horn.

Keep a grab bag by the door, with water, medicines, copies of documents in a waterproof pouch, a power bank and cash. See the grab bag checklist.
Agree on a meeting point on high ground, and who collects the children.

Go back only when the authorities say it is safe. The ground, roads and bridges may have been undermined, and the water can rise again.
Do not switch on the power in a room that was under water until an electrician has checked it.
Treat tap water as unsafe until the supplier says otherwise. See No water, or water unsafe.
For cleaning up, insurance and mould, follow Flooding.
If you still feel shaken afterwards, talk to someone you trust. See Coping with a crisis.

If they are at school, follow the school's messages. Schools have their own safety plans and will move pupils on official orders.
Practise the walk to high ground with them, so they know the way.

Agree now with a neighbour or the commune who helps you leave, and ask for that help as soon as a warning comes in.

Take them with you, with food and water. Never leave an animal tied up or shut in.

If you are walking, camping or on the water below a dam, get away from the banks and climb at once when a warning comes or the water changes fast.

You may stay dry but be cut off for some time. Leave if you are told to. If you stay, expect the power, water and lift to fail.