Storms in Bonn Lightning causes significant damage to St Josef’s church in Beuel

Bonn · The consequences of last week’s storm have been more severe than anticipated in Beuel. Lightning struck the Oberlinger organ and caused significant damage to St Josef’s church.

Dean Wilfried Evertz is trusting by profession. But even all the priest’s prayers did not help in this case. Last Friday’s violent storm had worse consequences for the parish of St Josef and Paulus than originally thought. It has been clear since Monday that the parish church on Hermannstraße is showing significant signs of damage to the electrics and the electronics of the church despite it having a lightning conductor and a surge protector. After initial calculations, Father Evertz is assuming damages of up to 10,000 Euros.

“The lightning strike was so strong that I felt the vibrations very clearly in my adjoining apartment. I immediately knew that the storm would have unfortunate consequences for us,” Evertz told the GA.

The parish’s damage report reads as follows:

Tower clock: The stopped clock in the bell tower is visible from a distance. The movement is obviously defective and permanently shows 3.15pm.

Oberlinger organ: The world famous organ of St Josef, on which the best-known organists from all over the world have performed, can no longer be played. The choir organ is also broken.

Carillon: The famous bell chimes, built to a height of around 60 metres in the church tower, can no longer make a sound. With 62 bells, the Beuel carillon is the third largest carillon in Germany. It weighs a total of 10,200 kilogrammes.

After several phone calls on Friday to Orgelbau Gaida, a company which makes organs, organ expert Gerd Rech arrived in Beuel on Monday from Saarland and inspected the damage. “The damage to the Oberlinger organ is serious…The repairs will certainly take several days.”

Father Evertz is also concerned about pastoral work in his parish. “Both the telephone and the internet are cut off. We are therefore difficult to reach. In urgent cases, parishioners must come into the parish office.”

The priest now hopes that all the damage will be repaired in time for the parish festival on Sunday, 8 July. “The heating in the church is also damaged, but it’s not important at the moment,” says Evertz.

According to the forecast from the German Weather Service, the Bonn region must also expect thunderstorms again from Thursday. Thursday will be mostly bright to begin with. During the day it will get cloudier with heavy showers and hail at times in the southwest. There will be localised danger from storms because of heavy rain and hail. The maximum temperature will be 25 to 29 degrees.

(Original text: Holger Willcke / Translation: kc)

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