Flood disaster: “An exception never seen before”

After the flood disaster, politicians are still shocked. Financial aid is being launched, and at the same time the questions persist as to whether more could have been done in advance.

Even days after the destruction by floods and floods in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the extent of the disaster is still difficult to grasp.

“The situation is such an exception that the Federal Republic has not yet experienced,” summed up the Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz. More than 170 people were killed in the accident. Most recently, the rescue workers in Euskirchen in Rhineland-Palatinate announced that they had recovered another fatality on Wednesday. 155 people are still missing in the state.

With a view to the Ahrweiler district, which was particularly hard hit by the disaster, Lewentz said that everything had come together “whatever could have come about in unfavorable circumstances.”

“Beyond imagination”

Mechthild Heil, member of the Bundestag, whose constituency is in Ahrweiler, spoke of a situation that was “beyond anyone’s imagination”. Many residents of the region are traumatized by the experiences of the past few days. “Some of them had to watch people drown,” said Heil.

In addition to buildings, infrastructure, electricity and drinking water supplies were partially completely destroyed. According to estimates by German insurers, the damage runs into billions.

Has the population not been alerted in time?

In the past few days, the question of whether the affected regions had been warned of the danger in good time has grown louder. At the beginning of the week, the head of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid (BKK), Armin Schuster, opposed the emerging criticism. His authority’s warning system worked. Districts and municipalities are responsible on site.

A spokesman for the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior has now made a similar statement. District administrators and mayors are responsible for the “organization of damage prevention in large-scale operations and disasters”. And they would all have received the severe weather warnings from the German Weather Service at the same time. Ministry head Herbert Reul had previously clearly stood behind the districts and municipalities. He is not aware of any case “where damage has occurred due to a late evacuation”. But in some cases the residents did not take the warnings issued seriously enough.

Warning partly not published on all channels

But not all districts have warned their residents about the storm in the same way. An example: In Ahrweiler, a message was issued via the so-called Katwarn app. The public insurers and the Fraunhofer Institute are behind the app. However, no warning was sent out by the local authorities via the NINA app from the BKK.

The BKK emphasized: Whether and with what content a warning is triggered via the system and then played via the warning app NINA was decided independently by the municipalities and districts. These could also use their own on-site warning devices such as sirens or commercial warning apps.

But in some cases the sirens could not be heard at all due to the volume of the water, said Lewentz. In addition, everyone would think the fire department would be alerted when a siren sounds. In addition, this form of alarm is sometimes no longer adapted to modern construction, for example to double-glazed windows, through which the siren sound does not penetrate so easily.

In order to avoid a possible late warning of catastrophes such as floods in the future, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Armin Laschet wants to rely on information via SMS as soon as possible, according to a report by “Bild”. The “cell broadcasting” technology required for this should, if necessary, be established single-handedly in his federal state.

Immediate aid for those affected decided

The North Rhine-Westphalian state cabinet decided on Thursday in a special meeting to provide emergency aid over 200 million euros. The federal government had previously decided to provide emergency aid for the same amount.

According to Laschet, the aid should be paid out to four groups: private citizens, businesses, farmers and municipalities. Applications can be made immediately. As in Rhineland-Palatinate, private households can initially receive a sum of up to 3500 euros. Means, asset and detailed tests will not be, Laschet assured.

New thunderstorms threaten at the weekend

The flood situation had recently eased somewhat in both federal states. Now the German Weather Service looks to the coming weekend with concern. Thunderstorms could bring heavy rain again. In view of the still wet soils, there is a risk that new rainfall will not be absorbed by the earth and that rivers could swell again.