Ministry trusted the civil protection in flood night

Created: 04/08/2022Updated: 04/08/2022 21:29

Members of Parliament come together for the meeting of the committee of inquiry into the flood disaster in the state parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate.

© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa/archive image

Disaster control and communication in the state government are the focus of the 14th meeting of the Flood Disaster Inquiry Committee.

The extent of the flash flooding did not become clear to the Interior Ministry and state authorities until the next day.

Mainz - "A severe but manageable flood situation" - with these words the Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz summarized the initial impression on the night of the flood disaster in the Ahr valley.

The SPD politician told the state parliament's investigative committee on Friday about his visit to the operations center in the Ahrweiler district on July 14, 2021: "I had the impression that you work really competently and with concentration because you know your region very well. "

It was not until the next morning that the extent of the "greatest catastrophe" that afflicted Germany after the war gradually became apparent - with 134 dead in the Ahr Valley alone and 184 in all in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

With his visit to the Technical Operations Center in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, he "wanted to give the municipal level a boost," said Lewentz in the committee survey.

Neither on the journey to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler nor about 25 minutes later on the return journey did he notice any signs of damage.

"It actually had other local priorities," said Lewentz, with a view to the declaration of the disaster in the Vulkaneifel district and reports from other areas of the Eifel.

He was not aware that district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) was "only briefly" present in the operations center, said the minister.

He also did not know that the district administrator had delegated the management of operations to the fire and disaster control inspector (BKI).

The public prosecutor's office is investigating both of them because of an initial suspicion of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm through omission because warnings may have been issued too late.

After further exploration and phone calls, he went to sleep about two hours after midnight, the minister said.

In the early morning he called Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD), the police headquarters in Koblenz, the federal police and others.

Then he drove back to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler and was initially stopped by a police blockade.

"The bridge was gone - that was my first actual impression of what must have happened there."

The state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Randolf Stich (SPD), also said that there was no mention of a flood disaster in the situation reports on July 14.

According to the information he received, "one could assume that the responsible civil protection is active on site".

He saw "no indications of the need" to "arrange further," said Stich.

"It was an area that affected several districts," said the head of the department of the national supervisory and service directorate (ADD), Heinz Wolschendorf.

"The fact that things are looking so dramatic in the Ahrweiler district only became really clear during the day on the 15th." The ADD initially had no indication that a technical operations center was not working, said Wolschendorf and ADD President Thomas Linnertz.

"The circles must seek contact if they feel overwhelmed," said Wolschendorf in his three-and-a-half-hour interrogation in the state parliament.

Otherwise there is no evidence to assume this.

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The director of the Kiel Institute for Crisis Research, Frank Roselieb, who was called in as an expert, saw clear deficits in dealing with the disaster - especially with the then District Administrator on the Ahr, Jürgen Pföhler (CDU), but also with the former Environment Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens).

The chairman of the Free Voters, Stephan Wefelscheid, said: "Director Roselieb did not give the entire state government a good report and with his statements he underpins the demand of the Free Voters parliamentary group for Anne Spiegel's immediate resignation."

The representative of the Greens, Carl-Bernhard von Heusinger, expressly agreed with Roselieb's criticism of District Administrator Pföhler.

However, the responsibility for civil protection never lies with the Ministry of Climate Protection.

"The latter transmitted the flood data to the responsible authorities in full and in good time and has thus fully fulfilled its responsibility."

In the past seven months, the committee of inquiry had focused primarily on weather warnings, how to deal with them and the role of the State Office for the Environment.

Minister Spiegel, who was then responsible for the state office and flood protection, had already been heard on March 11th.

dpa