For eleven days the chief firefighter, Vaia Kousaviti, had not been able to return to her flooded home in Farkadona, Trikala. The day the bad weather “Daniel” began to hit Thessaly she went on duty in a change of clothes and returned to her family on September 15, facing, as she emphasizes to the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency, a “scene of war, where only the curtains were left inside in the mud”. While she was at the Operations Coordination Center in Larissa, she was notified by her husband that the water had reached the roofs of the houses in Farkadona. “It was a shock to be told that all of a sudden the water was reaching such a point that the windows were being hidden. I’m in shock, I’m crying. There was a paranoia, a madness, my husband, my two children and our dog were in the house. We had so much work that I couldn’t have the communication I wanted, I picked up the second I learned about the news, the other lines rang and I hung up. Work had to continue as normal, the situation should not be affected. It was very difficult to balance between work and anxiety for your own people and your own home,” Ms. Kousaviti explains to APE-BPE.

In the 25 years she has been serving in the Fire Department, she had never been called upon to manage such a disaster that involved her home, the place she was born, and endangered her family, relatives, and fellow residents. The highlight, however, was when she saw her grandfather’s house fall on live television.

“I’m at work and we have to arrange transport of people with health problems and there were three serious cases. I go up to the commander’s office where there was a TV on some channel and at that time I see online the corner of my grandfather’s house that was demolished. I sit on the chair, hand over my papers, and exclaim this is grandpa’s house,” Ms. Kousaviti describes to APE-MBE and adds that her parents were away from home.

“It was a difficult and unprecedented situation, especially when you are there and you have to work and your house falls down, a house that was habitable”, he notes to APE-MPE.

Vigilant for consecutive twenty-four hours, the firemen and women who were in the field, in the rescue operations, in the coordination center of operations, tried to help as many of their fellow citizens as possible. At the Operations Center, thousands of calls were received either for extrications and rescues or for pumping water.

“At some point we started receiving calls for rescues in Farkadona. Most of them were my acquaintances, people from my area. I was learning information about trapped people. I was trying to guide the echelon that was there to get people out as quickly as possible. The children worked all night to get everyone out. I wanted ideally for the boat to come through that night and take them all so that no one, anywhere would be in danger. The EMAK colleagues said that they will do everything possible to save people,” Ms. Kousaviti describes to APE-MPE.

After eleven days, Mrs. Kousaviti, returning home, felt that she was witnessing a “war landscape”. “The roads were impassable, there was mud everywhere. The absolute shock. Only the curtains are left in our house. Now we can step and walk without slipping with the fear of falling and killing ourselves”, he emphasizes.

“You have to support children, parents, keep strength to go to work, find where to stay, where to organize to pack your clothes. However, no matter what work you do, above all you are human and this should be understood by many, many people. A firefighter must have a soul. Every day you surpass yourself in this job”, Ms. Kousaviti points out to APE-MPE.

Similar moments of anxiety for his family and his relatives, while he was at work, was also experienced by the general duty deputy firefighter, Panagiotis Beis.

As he describes to APE-MPE, on Thursday, September 7, around 21:00 to 22:00, he received a call from his father informing him that Agios Thomas Larissa, at the bridge, is starting to flood.

“The countdown to the flooding of Agios Thomas had begun. The basements began to flood. The same thing happened in my father’s house. At a distance of 500 meters the water, however, in the morning had flooded the entire basement and came up to the entrance. The anxiety for my family was great, I can’t hide it. The moment was very difficult, I had to help my fellow man who called me either through 199 or 112 and asked for the help of the Fire Department (whether it was to pump water from a house, or to rescue a person). There was no electricity or water. My family left on Saturday, September 9 in the morning, while the road was flooded. But they had the courage and strength to walk and go near one of our cars, which they had put on a hill since Thursday, and take them to a safe place. When I was informed that everyone was fine and had escaped any danger, I was much calmer for my family members”, Mr. Beis explains to APE-MPE, adding that the fellow citizens he spoke to on the phone conveyed their anxiety, fear but and the pain they felt seeing the devastation that had been caused.