Status: 07/19/2021 4:46 p.m.
In addition to private residents, many companies in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate were hit hard by the storm. In many places the costs cannot yet be estimated.
Downtime production plants, devastated factories or shops, flooded warehouses and destroyed infrastructure: the floods in Germany also caused massive damage to numerous companies. In many places the exact extent cannot yet be foreseen. But for the economy too, the damage from the devastating heavy rain could run into billions.
“A number of companies are affected by us,” said a spokesman for the Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering NRW of the news agency dpa. However, he did not mention the names of companies. According to the company, a plant of the automotive supplier ZF in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate has been idle since the flood, as have the machines of the copper recycler Aurubis in Stolberg near Aachen.
RWE also had to interrupt production in the Inden open-cast lignite mine and reduce production in its Weisweiler power plant. The Bad Münstereifel outlet center reports on its homepage: “Closed for an indefinite period of time”. In addition, there are destroyed hotels and damaged lines of the network operators in the crisis regions.
No resumption of production at ZF in sight
At the ZF plant in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, which was devastated by floods, there is no resumption of production in sight for the time being. The extent of the damage is still not clear, said a spokesman for the group headquartered in Friedrichshafen. According to ZF, around 280 employees regularly work in the affected plant.
During the night of last Thursday, the flood flooded production and storage facilities. The water in the plant was up to two meters high. Twelve vehicles, including a caravan, were washed into the ZF halls from the outside. The plant was badly devastated and the ground was covered with a thick layer of mud. There were no injuries.
“Some of the night shift employees could be brought to safety in good time by acting quickly on the part of their colleagues,” said Ralf Hunke, head of the shock absorber factory, to the “Handelsblatt”. However, the way out was blocked for seven employees. They could have escaped to the upper floors.
“Shocking” effects
The copper recycler Aurubis reported last week that due to the heavy rain, production at Aurubis Stolberg GmbH & Co. KG in Stolberg near Aachen had to be stopped and the site evacuated on Wednesday evening. Therefore, the plant with its around 400 employees can no longer meet its delivery obligations.
“The effects of the storm on our plant in Stolberg are shocking for all of us,” said Aurubis boss Roland Harings. The flooding affected the entire company premises. “We will do everything we can to rebuild the plant and start production again as soon as possible.”
RWE power plants affected
At the electricity supplier RWE, the Inden open-cast lignite mine and the connected Weisweiler power plant were badly affected. The power plant was still running on Monday with reduced output, as a company spokesman reported. On Thursday the Inde river flooded a dike near Lamersdorf and ran into the open pit. Coal production had to be stopped and could not be resumed until the end of the week. The power plant has been operating at reduced output since then.
Numerous RWE hydropower plants in the Eifel, Moselle, Saar and Ruhr regions also had to temporarily stop operating. The damage could reach a mid double-digit million euro amount, forecast RWE. The Bad Münstereifel outlet center was also hit hard. The trade journal “Textilwirtschaft” reported that almost all shops in the outlet center had been destroyed.
Telephone network and post with restrictions
There are also problems at Deutsche Post. “At the moment, especially in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, there are delays and delivery failures,” said a spokesman for the “Handelsblatt”. Some streets and highways are not passable. In some places, pickups and deliveries are not possible at all or only partially. That leads to delays.
The electricity and telephone networks have also suffered great damage. As a result of the storm, around 130 Telekom locations in the crisis regions had failed, as the company announced. There are places where the entire infrastructure has to be rebuilt. Entire streets there were torn away with the cables. Meanwhile, however, more than half of the failed cell phone locations are back on the network.
Vodafone and Telefónica were also affected. The three network operators are not yet able to estimate the exact extent and duration of the repair work.
VW gets off lightly
At Volkswagen, however, the effects of the flood disaster on logistics are limited, according to the company. As at the end of last week, there are currently “only local disruptions at a few supplier locations,” said the Wolfsburg headquarters on Monday. Overall, the parts supply network works despite the effects of the storm. Production is therefore not restricted.
VW does not have its own locations in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, which were particularly hard hit by the floods. In Saxony, where there was also heavy rainfall, there are several plants – and there are also suppliers in many other regions of the Federal Republic. However, due to the lack of chips, production at VW has been cut back significantly anyway. The group donated one million euros for immediate and emergency aid.
Klöckner calls for flood aid for agriculture
Federal Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner meanwhile demanded that flood aid should also benefit agriculture after the flood disaster. According to initial impressions, the damage to agricultural land, buildings and infrastructure in the affected areas was “partially threatening the very existence”, announced the Ministry of Agriculture today.
For example, grain stocks were completely destroyed in many places, entire animal populations drowned and facilities of wineries and winegrowers’ cooperatives were completely destroyed. The federal cabinet will discuss the emergency aid from the federal government next Wednesday.