Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia
 
20.05.2014.

Faster than a truck



The swollen Sava River threatened Sabac on the first day of the floods, immediately after the tragedy in Obrenovac.

Learning from experience in Obrenovac municipality, citizens of Sabac did not waste time. And they knew whom to turn to. This was followed by an order to the Armed Forces to save Sabac at all costs. The situation was put "under the control". Among the first ones to come to the scene, even before the volunteers who arrived the same evening from Belgrade, there were the members of the 250th AD Missile Brigade.

- From 7 pm on 16th May until late morning the next day, 90 members of the brigade were working on the construction of the levee behind the "Zorka Elixir" factory. They filled bags with sand and erected defensive bulwarks behind the factory, preventing the swollen river to flood the plants with chemicals. Hundreds of bags were strung to anti-flood bulwark, while the rain relentlessly poured on the people who did not notice anything else but the level of the river. Tons of sand were loaded to sacks in a minute and for a truck it took 15 to 20 minutes, said Captain Drasko Zivkovic, a public affairs officer.

And so it was all night. Among the people engaged there are officers and non-commissioned officers and soldiers, all of them are working as one, persistently, strongly and continuously. Defending Sabac from the wild Sava River, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, there are commander, soldier, sergeant ... All of them are part of the crew ... While some are working on filling the bags that arrived, the others are taking them to the levee, they make a living chain, then they change. Sergeants are working harder than the others, to show that they are not for the "old iron". One of them is Predrag Eric, with twenty kilograms on his shoulder, running towards the levee, throwing the sack and he returns.

- There is not enough sand, Sergeant Eric says. We are faster than the truck that brings it. In less than 20 minutes, we spend 20 tons of sand and then we have to wait for the next truck. Water rises also to the hangar where we fill bags, comes out from the ground. On the other side it rushes to the bulwark. We realized that we are in a race with time – the Sergeant tells.

Another group of unit members arrives in the late morning, on 17th September. Around seventy officers, NCOs and soldiers from the Novi Sad division are engaged in identifying other critical point near the silo in the Old Town. There the river has already penetrated the levee. Kilometres of defensive bulwark grow in height faster than the river. While it sweeps around three centimetres per hour, the levee is rising ... They have spades and shovels in their hands, sand bags are getting filled up. Sava runs away from them and their bags. As they arrive, the river retreats, to break out somewhere else. But they are also persistent; they go where they are needed. The owners of Order of National Hero cannot do otherwise.