What to do in the event of a severe storm, a major fire or a major threat? The population must be informed about this quickly. The disaster scenario is to be rehearsed one day a year. Actually.
Since the Second World War, more and more sirens and other warning templates have been dismantled in Germany. If a dangerous situation threatens, it is difficult to warn the entire population uniformly and, above all, efficiently. To this end, the federal government set up the official warning day for the first time in Germany last year, where all systems are tested. Actually, this day should be repeated annually in the future. But the catastrophic balance sheet of 2020 is now thwarting the project
WARNING DAY 2021 IS CANCELED
On September 10, 2020, all sirens and warning apps should sound the alarm as a test and practice for emergencies. But the much-announced warning day ended in a fiasco: Only a few things really worked out satisfactorily. Due to internal communication errors and overloaded servers, the warning apps NINA and Katwarn sent an alarm too late. In an emergency, citizens would have found out about the dangerous situation too late.
In 2021, the population should rehearse the disaster situation again on September 10th. But as the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) reports, this year they prefer to test behind closed doors. The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) wants to set up a new or comprehensive test landscape that will only be available in the first quarter of 2022. In this context, they also want to set up new sirens in Germany and repair existing warning channels.
“An effective warning of people requires an interaction of all warning media and the inclusion of all analog and digital warning channels such as the warning app NINA, radio, sirens, loudspeaker trucks in this test operation”, explains the BMI. Accordingly, the nationwide warning day will not take place again until September 10, 2022.
WARNING APPS ARE OFTEN TOO SLOW
It was only this week that there was renewed criticism of warning apps, especially the Katwarn app . In the case of widespread storms, the app either issued warnings far too late – for example the next day – or sent alarm signals every minute.
