The recent flooding in Germany, which caused the death of 117 people, also caused billions of euros in damage. The Suddeutsche Zeitung reports that the German Federal Government expects that the damage to the German railway system and roads will top two billion euros, 1.3 billion of that for the railways alone.
The task force of the Federal Ministry of Transport, the federal highway company, met on Monday to determine the extent of the damage and begin the reconstruction of destroyed bridges, tracks, roads, and cell phone towers. Bavarian State Prime Minister Markus Söder announced that his state will make 50 million euros available for flood victims in addition to the Federal Government’s 300 million euros. Even more massive damage occurred in the states of North Rhine Westphalia and the Rhineland Palatinate, but the amount of emergency aid has not been reported.
The flood disaster exposed that the digitized flood warning system, which only announces an impending potential threat through a cellphone app, is as big a disaster as the flood. It was an abject failure, which led to the unnecessary injury and probable deaths of many people. There are now demands for a return to the old-fashioned but very effective analogue system of “good old sirens.” The German Fire Brigade Association (DFV) President Karl-Heinz Banse called for such a system on Bayerischer Rundfunk, saying, it makes more sense “if the siren systems are rebuilt across the board” and people are trained in what their signals mean. “We might have been able to prevent a lot.” He pointed out that older people, in particular, do not always have their cell phones in hand.
“The digital alarm does not work if there is no sound,” says the managing director of the Rhineland Palatinate district council, Burkhard Müller. “We have to establish new siren signals,” demanded Müller. The established signals, for example for air raid alarms or ABC alarms in the event of an attack with atomic, biological, or chemical weapons, are no longer up-to-date. He pointed out that the breakdowns on the nationwide warning day of September 10, 2020, had shown that the federal government had to provide more money to again finance siren systems. “We absolutely have to accelerate this now and bring it up to a high technical standard.”
Another important issue raised is the fear of a massive rise in the number of Covid 19 cases in the area.
“At the moment, many people are coming together in a very small space to deal with the crisis together. We now have to be careful that dealing with the disaster does not turn into a superspreader event,” said David Freichel from the Corona communications staff at the State Chancellery in Rhineland-Palatinate Editorial network Germany (RND). The State Ministry of Health is preparing a special vaccination campaign in the disaster areas in consultation with the authorities of the affected districts.
