Scheuer speaks out in favor of SMS warnings in the event of disasters - so far, political will has been "missing"

The flood disaster shook Germany.

A question that is now on the political agenda: How can we better warn people in the future?

Scheuer has an idea.

Berlin - More than 160 fatalities and the gloomy assumption that more will be found: The flood disaster * in North Rhine-Westphalia and Reinald-Palatinate shocked all of Germany and continues to keep the region in suspense.

But politics is now also moving more and more into focus.

Now that the fuss around Armin Laschet's laughing blunder seems to be slowly settling, serious questions are being asked that demand answers.

Probably the most depressing question that decision makers are currently confronted with: Couldn't the disaster have been prevented, or at least more people could have been saved?

Meteorologists in particular, including international ones, are making serious accusations; the British hydrologist Hannah Cloke even speaks of a “monumental system failure”.

Andreas Scheuer: Disaster warning by SMS to all citizens

The current debate also revolves around the question of how the government can better warn citizens of impending disasters. The name "Cell Broadcast" comes up again and again. This technology makes it possible to send SMS to all people who are currently in a risk area in which an emergency or a disaster is looming via the citizens' mobile network providers. The problem: The extremely expensive technology does not exist in Germany, the

knows

.

But: It is actually prescribed, according to the new EU directive for electronic communication, wherever public warning systems are available, mobile phone providers must also send warnings to citizens in the event of an approaching disaster.

This should be implemented by the end of last year - but Berlin remained inactive and could not deliver any results.

Andreas Scheuer (CSU), Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure, is now calling for such a nationwide warning SMS to be introduced.

In the same breath he explains to

that this has always failed so far because “the political will was missing in some places”.

Storm disaster in NRW and RP: A wake-up call for Scheuer

In other countries, such as Japan, the USA or the Netherlands, such a central warning system via SMS has long been standard. Scheuer also addresses

data protection in

relation to

in this regard, where the previous sending of such warning SMS failed and calls for data responsibility in the sense of citizen protection.

According to Scheuer, the internationally recognized "German Weather Service" warned early on of the storms and informed the disaster institutes about the situation in good time - but this information did not reach the citizens sufficiently, writes the

. That must change in the future, the flood disaster is now serving as a wake-up call that the discussions should now be less about data protection and more about protecting citizens with the right tools, said the Federal Transport Minister. (fh)