Abstract
Floods are a known natural hazard in Germany, but the amount of precipitation and ensuing high death toll and damages after the events especially from 14 to 15 July 2021 came as a surprise. Almost immediately questions about failure in the early warning chains and the effectiveness of the German response emerged, also internationally. This article presents lessons to learn and argues against a blame culture. The findings are based on comparisons with findings from previous research projects carried out in the Rhein-Erft Kreis and the city of Cologne, as well as on discussions with operational relief forces after the 2021 events. The main disaster aspects of the 2021 flood are related to issuing and understanding warnings, a lack of information and data exchange, unfolding upon a situation of an ongoing pandemic and aggravated further by critical infrastructure failure. Increasing frequencies of flash floods and other extremes due to climate change are just one side of the transformation and challenge, Germany and neighbouring countries are facing. The vulnerability paradox also heavily contributes to it; German society became increasingly vulnerable to failure due to an increased dependency on its infrastructure and emergency system, and the ensuing expectations of the public for a perfect system.
Highlights
The floods in July 2021 have caught many by surprise in Germany; people affected, authorities, the private sector, media and the media-informed general population
The following four sub-sections detail these for four key areas; knowledge interpretation and communication gaps; data and data exchange gaps between actors; decoding compounding events and escalations in social cohesion; and, compounding escalations due to critical infrastructure (CI) failure
The same applies to many actors, we found out in the CIRmin project; many neighbouring communities have never met at the working level, and false expectations of help and liability exist between infrastructure operators
Summary
The floods in July 2021 have caught many by surprise in Germany; people affected, authorities, the private sector, media and the media-informed general population. A slow-moving large summer storm system named ‘Bernd’, attributed in size and moisture to climate change, led to high amounts of rain (up to 150 mm within 48 h, (see Figure 1) and respective river discharge peak flows [1,3,4]. Neighbouring countries such as Belgium (more than 30 casualties), Luxembourg and France experienced heavy rain due to the same storm system. Other areas in Europe and worldwide, saw heavy rain and floods damages in the summer
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