Civil protection: “Our warning system worked”

More than 160 people are dead and there is devastating damage to property. Could this have been prevented if there had been better warnings? Experts speak of failures, the head of the competent authority rejects the criticism.

After the flood disaster with more than 160 deaths and devastating property damage, civil protection in Germany has come under fire. Numerous politicians spoke of failures and mistakes.

During a visit to the flood areas in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler with Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), the head of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid (BBK), Armin Schuster, defended his authority. Their task is to provide a warning system in the event of a defense. Local authorities and districts are responsible.

“Taste of Election Campaign”

Between Wednesday morning and Saturday noon, 150 warning messages were sent via the BBK system. “Our warning system worked in every single case,” said Schuster. However, he has no influence on how the warnings from his authority are dealt with on site. He did not have the right to penetrate into the municipalities. He is not the top disaster protection officer in Germany. “Anyone who would like to see the BBK in greater responsibility has to talk to the legislature,” said Schuster, referring to the distribution of competencies in disaster control.

Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer said he believed the disaster control was well positioned. However, the federal, state and local governments should also jointly think about the lessons to be learned from crisis management. One shouldn’t remain arrogant that nothing can be improved, said Seehofer.

However, he does not want to shake the federal structure of civil protection. This is correct, “and has been for decades,” said Seehofer during a visit to the Steinbach dam in the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Euskirchen. “Centralism doesn’t improve anything here.” He rejected the criticism of civil protection by saying that it had “the taste of an election campaign” for him.

Opposition sees civil protection poorly prepared

Previously, parts of the opposition in the Bundestag had sharply criticized Seehofer, who is responsible for disaster control. FDP parliamentary group vice Michael Theurer sees serious failures in civil protection. “The timely warnings of the meteorologists have not been adequately communicated to the citizens either by the authorities or by public broadcasters,” said Theurer of the dpa news agency. “The picture presents itself of a considerable system failure for which the Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer bears direct personal responsibility.”

The FDP parliamentary group requested a special meeting of the interior committee. Seehofer had to explain what the federal government knew exactly when – and what was done to ensure disaster control.

Left party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow even brought a request for resignation into play. “Seehofer bears the political responsibility for the disastrous failure of the federal government,” she said.

“The federal government must play a stronger, coordinating role”

Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock spoke out in favor of giving the federal government more powers in matters of precaution against extreme weather events. It is necessary to “massively” strengthen risk prevention. “In my opinion, the federal government must also play a much stronger, coordinating role here,” said Baerbock in the ARD morning magazine. In the case of supraregional events, the federal level must be able to do more, said the Greens chairwoman. This was also shown by the corona pandemic.

Altogether, Baerbock demanded as a lesson from the recent floods a “threefold national effort”: In addition to better risk prevention, more “climate adaptation measures” would have to be taken. This includes redeveloping cities and giving rivers “more space”. After all, more needs to be done in terms of climate protection.

Warnings not received by the population?

Criticism of the German disaster control was also voiced from abroad. The British hydrology professor and co-developer of the European flood warning system Efas, Hannah Cloke, spoke in the “Sunday Times” of “monumental system failure”, which is responsible for the death of numerous people. A few days beforehand, satellites had determined signs of the disaster and the German authorities had been warned.

Federal government considers criticism to be premature

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport could not initially say when warnings of impending floods were received by the subordinate German weather service in the past week.

A government spokeswoman described the search for errors as premature. People are still being saved. Then one will see “whether further conclusions can be drawn”. She referred to the joint responsibility of the federal, state and local governments.

“Do not fundamentally question the system”

Meanwhile, the German District Association warned against “fundamentally questioning” the system. President Reinhard Sager spoke out against the centralization of disaster control. “At a certain point, humans are simply powerless against the forces of nature that break in at such lightning speed,” he explained. “We should be aware of that and accept it,” he told the “Rheinische Post”. However, Sager spoke out in favor of improving the warning options via mobile phones. “The existing technical possibilities are currently still underutilized,” he explained.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) also pleaded for an improvement in the warning systems. The question arises as to how those people who do not have a warning app can be reached. NRW Prime Minister and CDU leader Armin Laschet announced that they would investigate where the reporting channels could be even better.

“Good old siren”

An improvement is already under discussion: BBK boss Schuster pleaded in the Deutschlandfunk for the re-use of sirens in the event of a disaster. A mix of warning devices is needed from different methods; purely digital warnings are not the right way to go. “And that’s why we want the good old siren back.”

With a funding program of 90 million euros, sirens were to be reinstalled “in the right places” together with the federal states. “The 90 million will not be enough for this. We will need more money,” said Schuster. It won’t be quick. “This is a project for several years.”