Committee of Inquiry
Where was the district administrator on the night of the flood?
The committee of inquiry into the flood disaster in the Ahr valley currently has many open questions to clarify. Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Where was District Administrator Pföhler on the flood night on the Ahr? The state parliament investigation committee is trying to clarify this central question shortly before the anniversary of the disaster.
Ex-District Administrator Jürgen Pföhler was mostly not in the operations management of the district administration during the flood disaster on July 14 in the Ahr Valley. He only appeared there for a short meeting with Interior Minister Roger Lewentz (SPD), as several witnesses had testified in the investigative committee of the Mainz state parliament. But where was the CDU politician? His “right hand” in the district administration, Erich Seul, was unable to answer this question in the Ladtag investigative committee, even though he called Pföhler several times. On Friday, the deputies tried to solve the riddle – with the help of the telephone list and SMS from Pföhler’s mobile phone, visited websites and private individuals as witnesses.
After that, Pföhler had the most frequent contact with Seul. The second most frequent number – 13 calls – belongs to a woman from the Ahr Valley who was saved as “Nring” in her cell phone, as the officer responsible for the evaluation at the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) said in the investigative committee. There were also text messages: At 0.50 a.m., for example, Pföhler wrote to “Nring”: “Disaster, dead, injured, people on roofs, no helicopter, power failures, our house is flooded, I’m at the end.”
Only private contacts for an hour
According to the investigator, Pföhler had been informed by SMS from Seul on July 14 shortly after 4:00 p.m. that the water level on the Ahr was rising sharply and that the fire and disaster control inspector (BKI) and the technical operations center (TEL) were planning a larger one Prepare to use. At 6:24 p.m., Seul informed the district administrator that Interior Minister Roger Lewentz (SPD) wanted to visit the crisis team. Between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., mobile phone data showed that only private contacts were registered during this period.
According to two LKA investigators, it was not possible to determine where the now 64-year-old was in the evening and at night. The location data was not recorded, the reason for this is unknown, said the police officer. At around 10:25 p.m., Pföhler had already sent an SMS to the woman in which he reported that the evacuation was imminent and that “everyone with the animals” had to go out on the street. “I hope the house doesn’t collapse,” the text ended. The last call to Pföhler was recorded at 1:57 a.m. on July 15.
Important witness cancels
The woman was supposed to testify as a witness this Friday, but had canceled her summons the night before, as committee chairman Martin Haller (SPD) said. Now it should be heard next Friday (July 15).
Pföhler also found out about the flood situation several times in the evening on media sites on the Internet, said the police officer. A total of 77 answered calls from Pföhler were registered between the early morning of July 14, 2021 and July 15 at 2:30 a.m., some of which were less than 20 seconds long. Therefore, it is unclear whether the talks came about, said the investigator. Of the 51 text messages, 18 were related to the flash flood. The contents of the phone calls are not known. According to the investigator’s evaluation, cell phone contacts were limited to telephone calls and text messages; WhatsApp was not installed on the cell phone.
Pföhler was to appear later in the session (from 6 p.m.) for the first time in the state parliament’s “Flood Disaster” investigative committee. The wife of the CDU politician exercised her right to refuse to give evidence at noon. Because the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office is investigating Pföhler because of possibly too late warnings and evacuations. Pföhler had also already announced that he did not want to testify.
At least 135 people died in the flood disaster a year ago (July 14/15) in northern Rhineland-Palatinate, including 134 in the Ahr Valley. 766 people were injured. Roads, bridges, gas, electricity and water lines and around 9,000 buildings were destroyed or badly damaged over a length of 40 kilometers along the Ahr. Around 42,000 people are affected in the Ahr Valley alone, and around 65,000 nationwide.