Immediately after the devastating flood disaster in July 2021, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU) traveled to her holiday home in Mallorca for several days. This is evidenced by a government document that was presented to the investigative committee of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament on Friday evening by members of the SPD and the Greens. During her interrogation in the committee, the CDU politician confirmed her trip to Spain. She had to take care of her underage daughter, who was spending her holidays there with friends. At the same time, the minister emphasized that she had always “completely carried out her official business” on the Mediterranean island, just as she did in her home office in Cologne or Düsseldorf. She added: “It wasn’t a holiday.”
Heinen-Esser initially returned to Düsseldorf from her stay in Spain in the afternoon after the catastrophic night of flooding on July 14-15, 2021. On July 16, she also took part in a crisis meeting of the NRW cabinet, which discussed rescue and relief measures after the storm of the century with 49 deaths in the state. Subsequently, however, the CDU minister, whose department is responsible for flood protection and waste management, among other things, was represented by her party friend Ina Scharrenbach, who heads the home ministry. In a note from the Ministry of the Environment, the Süddeutsche Zeitung It is said that Heinen-Esser “continued to carry out official business” (as he did during her stay in Mallorca in the days leading up to the flood), but formally transferred her responsibility for “cabinet matters” to Scharrenbach. Heinen-Esser’s deputy in the Ministry of the Environment, State Secretary Heinrich Bottermann, was also on vacation until July 23, 2021.
The interrogation of Minister Heinen-Esser’s office manager on Friday afternoon revealed that the head of department responsible for flood protection at the Ministry of the Environment did not take part in an important conference call with the minister on July 14, 2021, the day before the flood night. A subsequent email from the office manager does not mention any detailed consultations on the impending flood situation in large parts of the country. Instead, it was apparently discussed in more detail whether the then Prime Minister and CDU candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet should hold a public appointment in the city of Hagen, which was already affected by flooding. Heinen-Esser said in the committee that she had called the department head several times that day. Laschet finally made the on-site visit in Hagen on the morning of July 15, 2021.
The minister admits to another “mistake”.
Meteorologist Dominik Jung, as an expert witness, complained on Friday evening that people in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate should have been warned of the storm earlier. Two days before the record flood, “the affected region was 95 percent” clear, over which heavy rain of 150 to 200 liters per square meter fell. By noon on July 14 at the latest, people should have been alerted. According to Jung, this would not have changed much in terms of the billions in property damage: “But it could have saved human lives.”
Heinen-Esser admitted to the investigative committee that NRW was “poorly positioned” in the summer of 2021 when it came to flood protection. It was her “mistake” not to question the system of flood information and warnings in NRW that has existed for many years.