On the nationwide warning day two years ago, many people waited in vain for a message on their smartphone or a siren. Improvement was promised. But many in Baden-Württemberg should not notice anything from the next warning day either.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Even on the second nationwide warning day next Thursday (December 8), the sirens will not howl everywhere in Baden-Württemberg. Large cities like Freiburg deliberately do without siren tests, in other communities there are only a few or no sirens that work anymore. The sirens also remain silent in Göppingen: "There will be no siren warning on this day because they are not yet available nationwide," says the city. Something similar can be heard from Stuttgart.
During the nationwide warning day, a test warning is to be used to check how well the technical infrastructure is working. "We have to use such warning days for a concrete criticism of maneuvers, to see where we are already well positioned and where we can and must get even better," says Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU).
The warning is triggered by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) at 11 a.m. The all-clear is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Warnings should be given in several ways in order to reach as many people as possible. The warning message comes via radio and television, via warning apps like Nina, it will also be read on city information boards. Loudspeaker vans, the information systems of Deutsche Bahn and, for the first time, the cell broadcast process are also used. A notification is sent to every mobile phone that has reception at this time.
How important the warning can be in an emergency was tragically shown during the flood disaster in summer 2021 in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. At that time, some people had not been warned in time of the approaching floods. Sometimes the evacuation was too late, sometimes residents refused to leave their homes because they underestimated the extent of the disaster.
However, the nationwide siren system is still extremely patchy. In many places, the plants were dismantled after the end of the Cold War because it was believed that they were no longer needed. In the meantime, a late rethinking has taken place. The federal government supports the states with the installation of new sirens and the modernization of old sirens with a funding program. According to the Baden-Württemberg municipalities, however, the funds are far from sufficient. 11.6 million euros were made available to the south-west.
A lot went wrong on the first nationwide warning day on September 10, 2020. Among other things, the message from the warning apps Nina and Katwarn only arrived on the smartphones a good half hour late. If it had actually been an emergency, many citizens would not have noticed. The Federal Ministry of the Interior had therefore described the test alarm as "failed". A warning day originally planned for September 2021 was canceled and another from last September was postponed to December.
This is also the reason for the city of Freiburg not to take part on Thursday. "We didn't want to get involved in such imponderables," said the fire brigade. In addition, the city's siren rehearsals have been taking place on the last Saturday in March and October for many years. "The population in the city area is sensitized to these days," it says. Stuttgart, on the other hand, first has to rebuild its system: A city-wide siren warning is planned "in the coming years," said city spokesman Martin Thronberens. A job for siren planning is currently being advertised at the fire department. In the neighboring district of Esslingen, there are currently only 16 of the 44 municipalities with sirens.
It is different in Karlsruhe: according to the city, 59 electronic systems are connected to the stationary siren network in the city district. "Basically, all electronic siren systems are functional," said a spokeswoman. Bruchsal is also prepared: "We trigger all 44 sirens in our district," says Bernd Molitor from the regulatory office. The municipal council took over the systems from the federal government in the mid-1990s and has maintained them annually since then, replacing them if necessary and also expanding them. And according to the city, people in Lörrach are also alerted by an "almost comprehensive siren network throughout the city".
There is no nationwide overview, because municipalities and districts voluntarily take part in the warning day - or not. "Due to the responsibility of the municipalities for the use of sirens, the Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg does not have any state-wide figures on how many municipalities currently have sirens to warn the population," said the Ministry of the Interior.
