His images of the fireworks disaster passed the world. As mayor he says: Be prepared for disasters

Danny de Vries cannot tell in three moments in his life without getting too angry. The Championship of FC Twente, in 2001. His radio report of the fireworks disaster, to have had to run for his life shortly after. And a little later on the editors, when he sees his images for the first time.

It was silent, in the studio of RTV Oost. The entire editors had gathered in the small space when the video tape started to walk. The white smoke from the factory. Then, a little later, the fireworks that shot up. A first thump, roof tiles that flew off the houses. And finally the second, all -destroying bang. The image that jumped on black.

De Vries (51) gets goosebumps again 25 years after the fireworks disaster in Enschede, at home at the dining table in Oudewater, the Utrecht town of which he is mayor. He rubs his eyes dry. He has processed the disaster, but if that last moment comes up, he always becomes emotional.

At that time in the studio, he says, perhaps for the first time to him, he had witnessed. And at the same time, there was a great sense of relief that everything was on film – he mainly worked as a radio reporter and hardly knew how a camera worked. « Now we could show what had happened in Enschede. »

The depict Van de Vries, then freelance journalist at the regional broadcaster, cross the world. At the disaster there are 23 people, including a fellow journalist with whom he was good friends; 950 others are injured. The Roombeek district of Enschede is in ruins. He himself gets rid of it wonderfully without a cracks.

A sunny afternoon

On May 13, 2000, 26-year-old De Vries was on the road for Lijn Oost, a program that consisted of short interviews with passengers of the bus or train. The colleague who normally took to the streets was absent, and so it happened that De Vries took the bus up and down from Enschede to Hengelo ten times with his camera that day.

Until a friend called. There was a fire, he had seen some flares go into the air. Whether Danny shouldn’t take a look.

Upon arrival in Roombeek, the street at Vuurwerkfabriek SE Fireworks is already full. It is a sunny afternoon, half the neighborhood ended to watch. They laugh, occasionally some arrows go up in the air. It is a shame that it is not yet dark, says a spectator, then we could have seen the fireworks better.

A war zone

The atmosphere changes when suddenly a shell sound sounds. Large amounts of decorative fireworks shoot in the air from behind the houses. The camera in the hands of De Vries makes a rotating movement, he starts running out of the street. At the intersection he stands under the doorpost of the nearest house whose front door is open. The windows shoot from their places.

The persistent rumbling is drowned out by a thunderous bang. De Vries is blown back. When he opens his eyes again, he is lying in the back of the stairwell.

Earthquake training

Not long after he has recovered, De Vries describes the situation live on the radio as a ‘war zone’. The panic is audible in his voice. Part of the neighborhood has been swept away. The houses have been destroyed, in the wide circumference are glass, roof tiles, fragments. The street sees black with smoke and the dust.

In retrospect, what De Vries thinks is most wonderful: that he just kept working, instead of fleeing the disaster area. That went through him: Overijssel must hear of this. The camera was, he explains, « a kind of filter. You register it – no more than that. You are not part of it yourself. »

Later his psychologist will explain that if you do not understand what happens, you will fall back on what you still understand. De Vries received earthquake training as a fourteen -year -old in the US state of California, where he had lived for a year. There he learned that you had to stand under the doorpost, the strongest point of the house.

Then he did no more than he was used to: register. Like a doctor, De Vries says, immediately starts saving people. He put wounded people in cars, with the task of driving them to the hospital. Why did he not get in himself, he sometimes wonders. He was, looking back, in a « intoxication. »

RTV Oost will receive aggravated phone calls after the broadcast: whether the journalist could not have reported a little calmer

It takes a long time before the rest of the Netherlands penetrates what happened in Enschede. RTV Oost will receive annoyed phone calls after the broadcast, whether the journalist could not have reported a little calmer. And De Vries’ father also hardly realizes the seriousness of the situation: he asks if his dear son cannot take a look at his car. It stood right next to the exploded storage.

In the days that follow, he only has to turn on the television or he sees his own images again. He has felt guilty for a long time. He was invited to every talk show, he could tell his story everywhere. Everyone knew what he had done. While some had lost their house or had lost family members.

There were also people who thought: that boy must have become rich in the disaster. On the contrary: studying and working no longer succeeded. He no longer got the images of the disaster from his retina. It was not yet the time that you were offered victim assistance. It took two years before he could sleep quietly again.

Seen enough misery

De Vries does not remain working as a journalist for long. He had seen enough misery. The disaster also changes his view of the world: after 13 May he regards every day as ‘a gift’. He wants to use his time useful. « Learning things, earning money and then doing something for society, » becomes the credo.

After a career as a spin doctor in crisis communication, he becomes politically active, including as a campaign leader in Overijssel for the CDA. He would not have made this switch without the disaster, he thinks. Because he had then decided that he « wanted to get everything out of life. » But also that he wanted to mean something for his fellow man.

The political arena, herself in the debate must « profile at the expense of another », is not reserved for him. De Vries sees himself more as ‘connector’. And that is, he says, exactly what a mayor is. In 2020, the Oudewater city council, a city that he hardly knows, chooses the Vries from 45 candidates.

As a mayor, he never has to wonder what he does it for. Because something happens in such a town. Sweet and sorrow. He meets people who experience the most miserable things. Not that at such a moment he can always mean something for them. Except by listening, to put an arm around them.

Oudewater has a modest size with 11,000 inhabitants. But as soon as you consider them 11,000 children, De Vries says, you suddenly get very busy.

De Vries notices that many people do not know what to do. Is anyone stuck in the elevator? Then he is called

Self -reliant

As a mayor, he notices that many people do not know what to do if something unexpected happens. Is anyone stuck in the elevator? Then he is called. Is an alarm off somewhere? He is called. Somewhere De Vries likes it: it is part of a small community. But it is also a signal « that something has to happen ».

In his speech at the local commemoration of the dead, he recently presented the question to the public: how bad is it if we end up without electricity for days? Are you self -reliant? Or better: are we self -reliant then? Are we paying attention to each other?

Not every Dutchman, says De Vries, has experienced a disaster. He did. He knew what resilience meant before it became a political fashion word. And so he sees it in uncertain times – whether it is about Russian threat, cyber attacks or climate change – as his task to highlight the need for this.

It starts with an emergency package, one to survive at least 72 hours. But also with agreements with your family for when you can’t reach each other for three days. So that people know how to act when it comes to it. As he, 25 years ago, knew he had to stand under a doorpost because he had learned it.

Is that fun? No, certainly not – but it is simply the reality, says De Vries.

Fireworks bunker in the street

With all the theories and rumors that were circulating in the aftermath of the fireworks disaster – about landmines in the factory or ice fountains as the cause of the fire – De Vries has never been so concerned. What exactly caused the disaster has never become known. He doesn’t really want to know either.

What does concern him is that he now understands what the municipal administration in Enschede at the time had to deal with. That you are sometimes wrongly held responsible for something. Or that you – to name a few – do not always know as mayor which street corner is a fireworks storage.

De Vries himself experienced that, when he found out just after he took office that there was a fireworks bunker in Oudewater. At Hém in the street.

The mayor sometimes wanted to know how it was possible that, so many years after that, there are still mountains of fireworks in the middle of a residential area. He remembers well: he was behind the computer and the team screen was filled with experts who explained to him that he didn’t have to worry about anything. That storage neatly met all safety standards.

See there, says De Vries, the difference between reality and reality. The reality consists of the agreements that we have made to close all the risks on paper. « But the reality is: we should not want this, 25 years after the fireworks disaster, anymore? » Or, he sometimes asks himself: « Have we really learned nothing? »

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