The storms of the past few days have presented the Berlin fire brigade with unprecedented challenges. “We have reached our performance limit and were also a bit overloaded in some places,” said state fire director Karsten Homrighausen on Monday in the interior committee of the House of Representatives.
From Thursday 12:00 a.m. to Sunday 4:00 p.m., when the “state of emergency weather” that had been called out three times was initially ended, the control center received 15,300 emergency calls – a record number. Normally, the control center receives an average of 2500 emergency calls within 24 hours. Almost 4,000 weather-related operations resulted from the more than 15,000 emergency calls. This is a larger number than is known in history, for example when the storm “Xavier” in 2017 resulted in a state of emergency lasting several days at the fire brigade. According to Homrighausen, up to 600 lower-priority missions had to be completed on Saturday and Sunday.
Almost 150 fire engines on duty at the same time
At times, more than 1,000 professional and volunteer firefighters were deployed during the storm, and almost 150 fire engines were on the road at the same time. The Technical Relief Agency was also called upon. “The extent has exceeded everything that has been seen before,” said the fire chief.
Wind gusts of up to 120 kilometers per hour have been measured in Berlin since Thursday. In the south and south-west of the city in particular, the number of operations increased. In Schlachtensee, two people who were in a forest area despite warnings were injured by falling branches. A fallen former radio beacon antenna from the former Tempelhof Airport posed a particular challenge for the fire brigade. It blocked the tracks of the S-Bahn ring. The rescue team had to fix loose components on the roof of the Paul-Löbe-Haus. And on Lake Tegel, the storm tore loose a passenger ship that had to be brought back to shore by the fire brigade.
The storm “Antonia”, which is currently sweeping through Germany, will also keep the Berlin fire brigade busy. The German Weather Service warns of gusts of wind that are expected to last until late Monday afternoon.
With regard to a change in the weather, Homrighausen said: “We are observing that the deployment scenarios are changing significantly.” In the past, this type of storm was experienced every two or three years. Now the frequency and intensity are increasing significantly. A few years ago, the issue of heat and drought would not have played such a major role, which would have brought older people in particular to hardships in the summer. The fire brigade must be prepared for such deployment scenarios.