Baden-Wuerttemberg
Communities prepare for blackout
3/8/2023 6:36 am
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – Even if a real blackout in Germany is considered extremely unlikely, the cities and communities in Baden-Württemberg are preparing for major power outages. At least since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine more than a year ago, basically all municipalities in the south-west have been in close contact with the local fire brigades, among others, said Christopher Heck from the Baden-Württemberg municipal day of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. The preparations were going on everywhere, but the implementation could have progressed to different degrees.
“Only if we think the unimaginable together can we best prepare the people in the country for disasters,” said Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU). This also includes a longer-lasting, large-scale power failure. Emergency meeting points are an important approach for municipalities to protect the population in an emergency, which the state is happy to support. At the meeting points, citizens receive protection and first aid as well as information on the current situation. The people there can also be supplied with water and food.
Experts describe a blackout as an uncontrolled, widespread collapse of the electricity supply. Brownouts are distinguished from this. According to the Ministry of the Environment, electricity will then be switched off in a targeted manner and with advance notice, regionally and for a limited period of a few hours.
