Ahr Valley disaster: MdB Eckert exchanges views with representatives of the water rescue service at Lake Hollern

Created: 06/17/2022, 11:00 am

In conversation with the member of the Bundestag: (from left) MdB Leon Eckert, Siegfried Dumbsky (train driver), Marcus Röttel (technical head of the water rescue service in Bavaria) and Jürgen Macha (technical head of the water rescue service in Upper Bavaria).

© Lorenz

Almost exactly a year ago, the Ahr valley was under water.

Now this catastrophe was the topic at Hollerner See in Eching.

MdB Leon Eckert had invited.

Eching

- On Wednesday, Member of the Bundestag Leon Eckert and Member of the Landtag Johannes Becher (both Green) met with the management and emergency services of the water rescue service at Lake Hollern in Eching to review the Bavarian action during the flood of the century.

Since the Bundestag is also still dealing with the Ahr Valley disaster, the Greens member of the Bundestag was interested in first-hand information.

Lifeguard was sent to bed - and no one knows why

Siegfried Dumbsky, leader of the Wasserwacht Oberbayern water rescue platoon from Landsberg am Lech, was there last year to be able to help the victims of the flood disaster as quickly as possible after support had also been officially ordered from Bavaria.

His memories of the day of the mission: After the strenuous journey to a base in Rhineland-Palatinate, his train rested briefly to be ready for the first mission.

It came quickly, namely: evacuating people from a farm.

"The farmers there were screaming - but we weren't allowed to drive off," says Dumbsky.

Reason: The fire brigade, which led the operation on site, had withdrawn the operation from the water rescue service and no longer assigned a new one.

"Then we just went to bed," said the train driver, and further: "They didn't even know

(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)

The chairman of the district water rescue service in Freising, Stefan Aigner, who also offered his help in the Ahr valley, made a similar statement.

Instead of accessing the water rescue boats, the local fire brigade chose their own, significantly worse, means.

Aigner cannot understand that.

The two trains, a total of around 100 highly trained workers, drove home after two days without being allowed to do much work.

For the technical director of the Bavarian water rescue service, Marcus Röttel, one thing must therefore be urgently ensured in the future: “The operations managers must know each other and be on site.

And we need standardization.” Because it didn't work in terms of radio communication either, because the local forces use completely different radio numbers than in Bavaria, for example.

Röttel pointed out that it must be very clear what the water rescue service can do in the event of a disaster.

"Many people always think we're just sticking band-aids and looking at the girls - but we're an excellently trained rescue unit," says Röttel.

Leon Eckert wants to find out what was wrong

What still annoys him is the time that elapsed before the use of the water rescue service and in particular the air rescue finally got the green light - while the people in the Ahr Valley were already standing on the roofs.

According to Röttel, the delay was not due to Bayern.

While Eckert now wants to research exactly where it "got stuck", Becher and the head of the BRK district association, Albert Söhl, suspected that the responsible forces in the Ahr Valley probably simply couldn't believe what was happening - until it was almost closed was late.

"It's fatal when so many hours go by," says Röttel.

It shouldn't happen a second time, and everyone agreed unanimously on that.

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