“Somehow our country is hit hard,” said Herbert Reul, referring to the latest accident in North Rhine-Westphalia, when he was given the floor on Wednesday in the interior committee of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament.

Before the interior minister draws a first cautious interim balance two weeks after the devastating flood disaster, he informs about the latest status after the explosion on Tuesday in Leverkusen's Chempark.

There are two deaths there to complain about, and the search continues for five missing persons.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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In connection with the flood, Reul has some good new news: nobody is missing in the flood areas.

Conversely, the first horror balance is thus established: the largest natural disaster in the history of the state claimed 47 lives in North Rhine-Westphalia alone.

The minister can still only roughly estimate the extent of the flood damage to private and public property.

They went "into the billions," says Reul.

Sections of two motorways and several federal and country roads are still fully closed, around 600 kilometers of railway tracks and 80 stops and stations are damaged.

Water supply still problematic

After rescuing and recovering, it is now a matter of tidying up, repairing and rebuilding - which in some places can take "weeks, months and sometimes years". “The water supply is currently still a major problem,” reports Reul. Mainly in the Euskirchen, Erftstadt-Blessem area, in Stolberg and Eschweiler and in the Aachen city region, there was major damage to the pipes, and numerous residents there still have to be supplied with water from tankers.

Reul believes that it is right that civil protection is organized on a federal and local basis in Germany. The flood had shown that it was a matter of “translating severe weather warnings into your own location, as it were”. Neither the federal government, the state, nor the German Weather Service (DWD) in Offenbach are sufficiently familiar with the local conditions to derive actions from weather forecasts.

Reul also protects the warning system. In the critical time of crisis between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning alone, cities and districts in North Rhine-Westphalia issued 41 warning messages, nine of them in the very highest category. At the same time, the minister stressed that the comprehensive processing of events and all structures in disaster control was essential. "The 47 dead clearly indicate that everything did not go right." However, rapid action is not allowed, as the highly dynamic and widespread disaster situation posed unprecedented challenges for the management organization of the emergency response in large parts of the country.

But one thing is already certain for the Minister of the Interior: The "warning" aspect should be the focus of the investigation. Some had smiled at him when he put the siren warning on the political agenda. Reul mentions in passing that there are currently around 5200 and thus 854 more sirens in North Rhine-Westphalia than in 2018 and that nationwide test alarms and "warning days" were introduced in the state three years ago. Because sirens are useless if nobody knows what to do after an alarm. It is also important to set up further warning systems.

Reul urges the rapid introduction of "Cell Broadcast", which has long been used by many other countries around the world, in which mobile phone users in danger areas receive warning messages via SMS. He thinks it is wise to allow the DWD, as the federal authority, to intervene directly in the radio program with warning messages like two weeks ago - without any editorial “detour”.