Fear of blackout: Bavarian city distributes precaution flyers for emergencies
Created: 09/22/2022, 12:02 p.m
By: Patricia Huber
In the event of a blackout, life comes to a standstill.
In order to prepare citizens for this situation, the city of Rosenheim is now distributing flyers with information on precautionary measures.
Rosenheim – The lack of gas deliveries from Russia could not only cause cold radiators in winter.
This may also endanger the power supply in Germany.
Experts warn, for example, that the increased use of electric fan heaters could lead to a collapse in the power grid.
What is a blackout?
A blackout is a longer-lasting, mostly national power, infrastructure and supply failure.
Regional failures can often be rectified after hours, supra-regional failures only after a few days.
This is to be distinguished from short-term technical faults (10 - 15 minutes) in the power supply.
Blackout: Rosenheim distributes “guide for self-provision”
But how do you behave in the event of a so-called blackout?
In order to prepare citizens for this emergency situation, the Upper Bavarian city of Rosenheim has now published an information flyer entitled "Blackout - and then?
Advice for personal provision".
This will be distributed to all households in the city.
Among other things, it contains a list of food and items that you should definitely have in stock at home.
"Plan as you would for a 14-day camping holiday in your own four walls," says the flyer.
The flyer also contains general information about the blackout.
It explains what a blackout is, how to recognize it and what the consequences are.
A statement by crisis prevention expert Herbert Saurugg also shows how seriously the city is taking the situation.
He is "assuming that such an event will occur in the next few years," he is quoted as saying in the flyer.
How realistic is a blackout scenario?
But is the situation really that serious?
In fact, the German Association of Towns and Municipalities is also warning of power outages in the coming winter in view of the gas crisis.
"There is a risk of a blackout," said the association's managing director, Gerd Landsberg, to the
world on Sunday.
Both hostile hacker attacks and "an overload of the power grid - for example when the 650,000 fan heaters sold this year go on line if the gas supply fails" are "realistic scenarios," Landsberg told the newspaper.
"We cannot rule out widespread power failures." Germany is not adequately equipped for this eventuality.
The federal government has recognized the situation, but is not acting sufficiently.
"The preparation for real crisis situations must be dealt with much more intensively," Landsberg demanded.
Germany must "expand civil disaster control much more intensively".
Association chief warns of blackout: "We are in no way prepared for such a scenario"
The head of the association called on every single citizen to prepare for crisis situations.
"I advocate taking the recommendation of the Federal Office for Disaster Control seriously, according to which citizens should have water and food in the house for 14 days," said Landsberg.
Unfortunately, hardly anyone follows this recommendation.
Every citizen must be aware of what happens when there is no electricity.
"Then there's no water, you can't fill up, after two days you can't charge your cell phone," Landsberg explained.
"We are in no way prepared for such a scenario."
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But there are also dissenting voices.
"The fear is largely scaremongering," said energy expert Christoph Maurer from the consulting firm Consentec to
n-tv
.
The general manager of the German Association of Cities, Helmut Dedy, told the
Rheinische Post
: "We shouldn't react with panic now, but with a joint effort." The cities wanted to save 20 percent on gas.
If everyone pursues this goal together, he sees a good chance of getting through the winter without a blackout.
At the same time, however, precautions must also be taken;
Emergency power reserves are necessary.
"In civil protection, states and municipalities share responsibility," said Dedy.
(ph/dpa)
