U-Committee: A night of death in the Ahr valley, reconstructed minute by minute – politics

In the end, the policewoman who said she was on duty in the Ahr Valley on the evening of the flood disaster will be remembered. As early as 10 p.m., she knew that six houses in the town of Schuld had been washed away. She called the situation center several times and told them about other flooded houses. In the situation center it was said that she should please write a report. The pilot will be remembered who said he flew over the Ahr valley in the evening and saw people drowning in their cars. He couldn’t save her because the helicopter didn’t have a winch. In the end, the state secretary from the Ministry of the Environment will also be remembered, who said he watched the news and had “a beer”. Then he went to sleep. He didn’t know anything about the extent of the disaster.

When the hearing of evidence in the investigative committee on the flood disaster ends this Friday, 222 witnesses have testified in 41 sessions in the Mainz state parliament. How could the catastrophe happen in the summer of 2021? Who is responsible for this? It will not only be about memories – but also about insights.

“We were able to atomize the evening, as I always say, so understand it minute by minute. The number of systemic problems is frightening,” says the chairman of the Free Voters.

“Communication between the individual levels did not work, not between the ministries, not between ministries, authorities, district of Ahrweiler. Existing findings were not communicated or – if they were – misinterpreted,” says the AfD chairman.

“Neither the Prime Minister nor the responsible ministers have asked people to apologize. We need a different way of communicating when dealing with mistakes,” says the CDU chairman.

It wasn’t about tax money, but about 134 dead people

Committees of inquiry are seen as the opposition’s “sharpest sword.” MPs can question experts, request files, and work through mistakes. The fact that the sword often remains dull has to do with party politics. The government defends itself, the opposition attacks, a game with well-known roles. The fact that this committee was different is probably due to the fact that it wasn’t about taxpayers’ money – 134 people died in one night. Several foremen say that relatives have asked them for clarification. Also in the mail: photos of the deceased. And so the leaders in the opposition also say that the government has “not hindered” the work. But what have they achieved?

First of all, there are the personal consequences. Sitting in front of the MPs was Anne Spiegel (Greens), who was Environment Minister in Rhineland-Palatinate during the flood disaster. A few days later, she went on vacation with her family, claiming to have attended sessions from there. She didn’t. Sitting in front of the MPs was Roger Lewentz (SPD), he was Minister of the Interior and had to explain why helicopter videos suddenly appeared 14 months after the flood. Lewentz had claimed not to have seen the videos, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have intervened because he didn’t see any dead people. Both had to resign.

And then there is Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD). She defended herself almost word for word twice. She didn’t know anything about the extent of the disaster that evening. She trusted what the Interior Minister had told her: “everything was organized” on site. She didn’t see his text message at 12:58 a.m. – “there may be/have been deaths” – until the next morning. In the state parliament, the opposition could not prove her to the contrary, and the calls for her resignation faded away. The people in the country reacted anyway: According to one Infratest Dimap survey In the 2021 state election, 66 percent were still satisfied with their work – this March it was 53 percent. It is the lowest number of her tenure.

“It’s very unusual for two ministers to have to resign,” says Uwe Jun, a political scientist at Trier University. But even more important are the substantive results. The deputies were able to show how many deficits flood and disaster control has.

So many emergency calls were received in the control center in Koblenz that evening that they could no longer answer them directly, but they were not responsible for triggering a modular warning system. In the ADD, the supervisory and service authority of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a picture of the situation was to be created, but it was not ready until 3:15 a.m. And in Ahrweiler, the district administrator could have triggered the disaster, which he initially did not do. Instead, a neighbor at the investigative committee said she saw a Porsche being driven away from his garage. The evacuations only began after 11 p.m. The public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz is investigating the man.

When the hearing of evidence in the investigative committee ends this Friday, the deputies will have looked back on the days of the flood. Apart from 6618 pages of protocol, what remains so far?

The Ministry of the Interior says they are working on setting up a situation center that is staffed 24 hours a day. When will it be finished? Probably 2024. The Ministry of the Environment says they are working on a flood prevention concept. When is this finished? “Various modules are already being processed or commissioned.” And at the investment and structural bank, which is responsible for paying out the reconstruction aid, 940 million euros have been approved, but only 479 million have been paid out. And so the hearing of evidence in the committee of inquiry ends – the final report should be available by the end of the year – but the work outside of the meetings continues.

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