Flood investigation committee meets once again
The state parliament's committee of inquiry into the flood disaster in the Ahr valley around two and a half years ago is meeting in public again this Monday (9.00 a.m.). Expert witness Dominic Gißler has been invited once again. This time, the professor of leadership and civil protection from Berlin will be questioned about his expert opinion, which he prepared on behalf of the public prosecutor's office in Koblenz. It deals with civil protection in the Ahrweiler district at the time of the flood in mid-July 2021.
The committee is meeting again at the initiative of Stephan Wefelscheid, Chairman of the Free Voters. The committee had actually formally concluded its hearing of evidence at the end of April, and the final report was to be discussed in the state parliament in December. This has now been postponed.
Wefelscheid said before the meeting that he expected more clarity on the question of whether the structural deficits in disaster control in the district of Ahrweiler were recognizable to the experts from the ADD supervisory and service directorate in the run-up to the flood. This also involved the question of whether the state authority had a duty to act.
The public prosecutor's office is investigating former Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee of the district's crisis team on suspicion of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm. Pföhler had rejected the accusations.
According to earlier statements by the public prosecutor's office, Gißler had concluded in his expert opinion that disaster control in the district of Ahrweiler was not optimally organized at the time of the flood. The district did not have a sufficiently developed command and control system.
The Parliament's flood investigation committee is discussing the role of civil protection during the Ahr valley's storm-induced disaster, with expert witness Dominic Gißler providing insights on the district's preparedness. Despite the committee concluding its hearings earlier in the year, new meetings have been scheduled due to unresolved questions surrounding the state authority's duty of action.
Source: www.dpa.com
