On Thursday we will be demonstrating how people can be alerted in the event of a disaster. At 11 a.m. cell phones are supposed to beep and sirens sound. BBK boss Tiesler explains which warning devices his office can trigger.
During the nationwide warning day this Thursday, around 38,000 sirens will be available for the test alarm, along with other channels. However, it will be at least a few months before at least some of them can be controlled centrally, as the President of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Ralph Tiesler, explained in an interview with the German Press Agency.
“The sirens have to be triggered by the municipal control centers, so someone in the control center has to press the button,” says the head of the authority. This is also the reason why the siren alarm does not come at the same time as the warning via app or cell broadcast. “Our goal is to make it possible for all sirens for which this is technically feasible to be controlled directly by the federal government in the future,” explains Tiesler. However, it is not yet certain whether this will be the case on the next warning day in September 2024.
Warnings are usually given locally or regionally
In practice, nationwide warnings – apart from the test alarm – are the absolute exception. Warnings are usually given locally or regionally, for example about floods or forest fires.
“So far, around 38,000 sirens have been recorded,” says the President of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), Ralph Tiesler, in the dpa interview. The Netherlands, for example, has a similar density of sirens based on the size of the national territory, where a test alarm is triggered every Monday of the month.
A complete and up-to-date picture of the functioning sirens installed in Germany will be available in 2024, Tiesler added: “The nationwide siren register should be available over the next year as a platform with up-to-date data.”
The BBK will trigger a test alarm at around 11 a.m. on Thursday. This will then be communicated via warning apps, radio and television stations as well as almost 6,600 digital display boards, among other things. The so-called city information boards can be controlled directly from the BBK.
Warnings should also be provided again via cell broadcast. Every cell phone user who is in a certain area with their cell phone switched on will receive a text message announced by a sound – provided the device is not too old and the necessary updates have been made. On Warning Day last year, Cell Broadcast’s coverage rate was around 53 percent, as the BBK reported, citing its own survey.
A lot went wrong on the first warning day of 2020
The number of sirens is higher today than it was a few years ago, even if there are still no sirens in some places in Germany. After the end of the Cold War, the devices were considered unnecessary in many places and were no longer repaired or dismantled. However, efforts are now being made to change that. There are also corresponding funding programs.
However, no one knows exactly how many sirens there were five years ago or ten years ago. Because the nationwide overview – disaster protection is a state matter – is only now being created.
A lot went wrong on the first nationwide warning day in 2020, which is why the then BBK boss, Christoph Unger, had to vacate his post. Things went better in the second test on December 8, 2022. “Overall, we can be quite satisfied with a rate of around 90 percent across all warning channels combined,” says Tiesler.
The question of bunkers in the event of war has not yet been clarified
The head of the authority, which was previously often accused of stirring up panic with its calls for self-protection, now sees the population in a better position when it comes to personal preparedness for crises and disasters.
In the dpa interview he says: “Our campaigns and events such as the corona pandemic, the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, but also the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine have ensured that people are more concerned with personal precautions deal with crisis and disaster scenarios.”
The BBK can see this from the results of a survey that the Bonn-based office has been carrying out regularly for the past year and a half. The number of downloads and guides on precautionary questions sent by the BBK upon request have also increased.
However, the federal authorities do not yet have a convincing answer to the question of bunkers or other shelters in the event of a military attack. “We are currently dealing with the question of how we deal with the remaining 579 shelters,” says Tiesler. He adds: “This is a complex issue, because since the decision was made in 2007 to no longer operate public bunkers, we are still at the very beginning.”