After the flood disaster, especially in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the question still arises as to why there was no more thorough warning of the danger.

According to an assessment by Deutschlandfunk, more than 100 official severe weather warnings were issued by municipalities during the week from Monday to Friday. These warnings are used, among other things, by the media to report them. 105 came from North Rhine-Westphalia and 16 from Rhineland-Palatinate. Of the warnings issued, 16 were in the highest category. However, there was no storm warning for the particularly affected area of ​​Ahrweiler. The county has not yet responded to questions about this. In addition, the highest level warning message from the Trier area did not reach any local radio distributor and was therefore not reported.

There is also the question of how effective the warning messages are. The city of Trier relied on loudspeaker vans, among other things, as almost no one checks their cell phone or listens to the radio at night.

Find out more on this topic in our program “@mediasres”.

This message was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on July 26, 2021.