On mobile phone videos, people recorded what many would not have thought possible: the tornadoes hit with incredible force, with incredible hardness. Within a few minutes, they turned three regions of Westphalia into fields of rubble.
The spire of the church breaks off in Lippstadt
The first tornado hit Lippstadt at 4:40 p.m. The force was so great that the top of the church tower in the district of Hellinghausen broke off. The roof of the nave shifted 30 centimeters.
The total damage caused by the tornado in Lippstadt is currently estimated at around 50 million euros.
“He came from above, turned here and then took everything with him.”
Resident Yilmaz Can
At around 5 p.m., a second tornado hit Paderborn, even more violently, even more devastatingly. 43 people were injured in the city area, twelve of them seriously. Many had expected a normal storm.
Paderborn’s Riemekeviertel was particularly affected. You can still see the effects today. Although many roofs have been re-covered and many facades have been renovated, numerous houses are still scaffolded.
The roofers can’t keep up, says local resident Yilmaz Can. He watched from the window as the tornado approached his home in May 2022: “I saw him turn right into the street, he came from above, turned here and then took everything with him. I was there when the fire brigade was there, I helped the people, everything was wild here, the cars were broken, everything.“
“I survived a tornado.”
sticker on a car
“I survived a tornado.” A local resident stuck this sentence on his car, which is now, exactly one year later, in the Riemekeviertel.
The popular Pader source area in the middle of the city center was also devastated. In the so-called green lungs of Paderborn, trees snapped like matchsticks. More than 1,000 trees in the East Westphalian city could not oppose the tornado.
Better quality of life than before the tornado?
Today it looks idyllic again, but the popular local recreation area has changed fundamentally. The trees are missing.
That should change, city spokesman Jens Reinhardt explains: “We will rebuild this Pader source area, we will renew paths, we will renovate bridges. We will modernize the playground. We will have more quality of life than before the tornado.“
But not everyone in Paderborn likes the fact that the local recreation area will not be planted again for another two years.
“Thank God no deaths”
The tornado also damaged nearly 20 church buildings. According to the Archdiocese of Paderborn, the renovation work is 85 percent complete. Sister Laetitia lives in the monastery of St. Michael, one of the damaged buildings.
Despite this, she says she is very grateful. If you saw the damage in Paderborn, there should have been countless seriously injured and dead people. “Thank God Paderborn was spared that.“
Artist collects broken roof tiles
In Höxter’s districts of Ovenhausen and Lütmarsen, it stormed on May 20, 2022 almost an hour later than in Paderborn. There were no dead here either, just a lot of rubble.
As of today, a Paderborn artist shows that something positive can even come from destruction. Olav Schiedel made an exhibition out of broken roof tiles: “For me it was about transforming the things that have this negative trimming, freeing them from this negative energy.”
And by the way, he collects donations for the most severely injured tornado victim from Paderborn – a woman who was hit on the head by a roof tile and is still suffering from the consequences.