On 22 January 1985, an icejam led to flooding of Kellenbach's main street, resulting in great damage to the buildings there. After a three-week cold spell, the river in the village core and all the way upstream towards Simmertal was thickly frozen over, but then a thaw drove huge ice floes downstream. These then got jammed just upstream from a pool in the river, piling up underneath the bridge across the brook, which was then only a few years old. According to eyewitness reports, the growing heap of ice came to within only a few centimetres of the bridge's abutment. Disagreements between various authorities as to who was responsible for dealing with the situation prevented explosives from being used to break the icejam, as residents had demanded, and as had at times also been done before. After livestock had been evacuated and sandbags had been laid on, the icejam finally broke up by itself shortly before midnight, once again allowing the water to flow freely.