Dresden. The fire department is in mourning. Several colleagues died in the flood disaster in West Germany. They died while doing their job. You helped and paid the highest price for it. The Dresden fire protection officers have contacted their colleagues in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
“During these hours, our thoughts are with the families, relatives and comrades of the emergency services and people who have lost their lives due to the bad weather in the past few hours,” says Andreas Rümpel, head of the Dresden fire and disaster control office. The Dresdeners have expressed their condolences via their social media channels, through which the professional fire brigade is always in contact with colleagues in other cities and federal states on other days. And from now on they will be driving with a black ribbon – until July 28th.
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At the same time, the Dresdeners are just waiting to be able to help. “The willingness to help among the German fire brigades is enormous,” says Andreas Rümpel. But for an operation in the disaster areas an official order is needed, he explains. The affected federal states would have to request this help, then the Ministry of the Interior distributes the orders.
Dresden fire brigade “well positioned for severe weather conditions”
From there it was said on request on Thursday: “We have not yet received an acute request for help from North Rhine-Westphalia.” That is quite normal, “because the affected federal state first mobilizes its own disaster control forces and, if necessary, asks the neighboring federal states for support.” Only then will a specific request for help be made via the Federal Joint Reporting and Situation Center. This organization office ultimately decides where and in what form help is needed and support is deployed.
Rümpel is convinced that the Dresden fire brigade is “well prepared for storms”. The control center in Übigau receives regular reports from the weather service about the upcoming development. The employees also look at the districts of Saxon Switzerland / Eastern Ore Mountains and Meißen, for which the Dresden control center is also responsible. “Over 1.1 million people live in the area of responsibility of this control center,” says Rümpel.
If there is really a storm ahead, more employees would be deployed in order to be able to act quickly despite the increased number of callers. Those responsible first rely on the regular staff, but other employees of the professional fire brigade who have been specially trained for this can help at short notice. In addition, on-call staff could then be alerted.
If the helpers have to move out, 100 employees are immediately available in the five fire and rescue stations in the city, plus more than 500 volunteer helpers from the 21 district fire brigades. “Special precautions are therefore not necessary,” Rümpel is convinced.
But that doesn’t mean that those responsible can sit back and relax. The chief service in the situation center must always have an eye “on the situation” in order to be able to react in good time when the Dresdeners reach their limit. Then you can rely on the helpfulness of your colleagues from outside. Just as they experienced during the flood of the century in 2002.
Donation options for flood victims:
Further articles
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- The flood victims in western Germany are similar to many Dresden residents during the floods in 2002 and further floods in 2010 or 2013. At that time, help and donations came from all over the country. Now the Dresdeners can give something back. The Lichtblick Foundation, an initiative of the Sächsische Zeitung, calls for donations. The money will be paid out in full to those affected on site by cooperation partners of the foundation, unbureaucratically. The Sächsische Zeitung will report in detail over the next few weeks on the people who could be helped. “People help people in need” is the motto under which Lichtblick has been calling for donations for people in need in Saxony since 1996. In this case it is about solidarity with the flood victims in western Germany.
Account connection: Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden, keyword: “Saxony returns”, IBAN: DE88 8505 0300 3120 0017 74, web www.lichtblick-sachsen.de - Also the City of Dresden started an appeal for donations. For more information, go to www.dresden.de/hochwasserhilfe2021. The account connection: State capital Dresden, Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden, IBAN: DE23 8505 0300 3120 0000 34, purpose: Severe weather catastrophe2021
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