During a visit to the flood area on the Ahr, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer drew gloomy prognoses about the costs of the reconstruction. Lessons must now be drawn from crisis management.
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler – During a visit to the disaster area on the Ahr, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer estimated the cost of the reconstruction at several billion euros.
“This is an exceptional situation that we can only cope with with all our efforts on site in a major national effort,” said Seehofer in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.
Accompanied by Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner and the Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz, Seehofer also got an impression of relief operations such as the construction of mobile drinking water systems by the Technical Relief Organization (THW). Disaster control in Germany is well positioned, said Seehofer. However, the federal, state and local governments should also jointly consider what lessons can be learned from crisis management. It would be wrong to “persist in the arrogance” that nothing can be improved.
After the devastating storm in southeast Bavaria, a flood disaster was also feared in Passau – but the situation has now eased.
In the morning the water level of the Danube in Passau was 8.19 meters and thus below the highest flood warning level of 8.5 meters. The Inn is also not a cause for concern at the moment. Individual areas of the city were flooded. Fortunately, one is still far from catastrophic conditions, said a police spokesman in the morning. The fire brigade expects that the clean-up work can begin in the evening or on Tuesday at the latest.
Even in the Berchtesgadener Land, which was particularly badly hit by storms, people could breathe a sigh of relief. “The night passed quietly,” said the fire department. The helpers are busy cleaning up. The weather outlook also gives cause for hope. Except for a few short showers, it should stay dry in the coming days. Storms are currently not in sight, said a meteorologist from the German Weather Service (DWD).
The situation in the Berchtesgadener Land was particularly dramatic at the weekend. The river Ache had overflowed its banks and turned into a torrent. Water also shot down from the mountains into the valley. Houses were full of water, some even threatened to collapse. Slopes slipped, parts of roads collapsed, railroad tracks were buried or flooded. More than 160 people had to be brought from their homes to safety in the holiday region around the Königssee.
Other rivers also swelled, for example the Loisach near Schlehdorf in Upper Bavaria in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district or the Isar in Munich. However, it was not dramatic. In Neuburg an der Donau, the flood just exceeded reporting level 3 at 4.63 meters. dpa
