„The fates of the people in the disaster region really touched me deeply,“ says Benno Riehl. Many of those affected by the storm had lost everything. Countless houses were badly damaged, while other buildings were completely torn away by the floods.
The impressions from the mission in the Ahr valley keep Riehl busy. He has worked for I.S.A.R. Germany in disaster regions around the world several times, for example in Nepal, Mexico and Indonesia. But this time it was different. This time, the disaster area was right on his doorstep, so to speak. He comes from Lehmen, just 70 kilometres from Ahrweiler. „For me, it was a matter of course to help the people here too,“ says Riehl. Just a short time after the disaster, he grabbed his green tractor and a trailer and set off. Together with the other I.S.A.R. Germany team members, he got to work. All of them had taken time off work for this mission, had taken unpaid leave or were given full pay by their employer for the mission.
The I.S.A.R. and BRH team was assigned to the Technical Operations Centre (TEL) in Ahrweiler and received its orders from there. The main task, together with other aid organisations, was to make the town centre of Ahrweiler accessible again. The helpers battled their way through the mud and the vast amounts of rubble and rubbish that the flood had left behind in the streets of Ahrweiler. Benno Riehl drove tonnes of rubbish out of the town. „It was absolute teamwork!“ says Riehl, referring to the exhausting work of each individual helper. Fortunately, we had excellent partners who provided us with heavy equipment. The Leonhardt Weiss company from Göppingen arrived with an excavator, wheel loader and lorry, the German Armed Forces sent all-terrain lorries and the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) also helped. „Not forgetting the local tyre service,“ adds Anja Hoche, who helped organise the operation. „They helped with tyre damage easily and free of charge.“ This is how she describes something that particularly characterised the days of the operation in Ahrweiler: the camaraderie and willingness to help.
This also included students from the Rhineland-Palatinate Police University supporting the I.S.A.R. team. Several agricultural and forestry companies offered their help. Even a football team lent a hand.
In all the chaos of the disaster, however, there was also that famous „moment“ when the tragedy of the catastrophe receded a little into the background. During their clean-up work in the city, the helpers saw a man in a corridor who was struggling with a piano. They helped him bring the piano to the door. It had got wet in the flood and was therefore to be scrapped. But the street once again becomes a grand stage for the piano. The piano is played once again and people sing. The video attracted a lot of attention on social media and the helpers are unlikely to forget these minutes.
But the operation leaves Benno Riehl pondering: „The coordination of the aid workers on site left me stunned. Basically, they failed. In my opinion, there is still a lot of room for improvement.“ Ahrweiler was not the only location where I.S.A.R. Germany was deployed. In Erftstadt in North Rhine-Westphalia, rescue dogs had to be used to search for people in partially collapsed houses. Our construction consultants also checked the stability of the houses and the subsoil near a flooded gravel pit. In Stolberg, our construction consultants inspected over 20 bridges together with experts from the engineering firm Rückert and the city's civil engineering department. The drone team from the BRH Märkisches Sauerland rescue dog team was also deployed.
„I am proud of our team,“ said I.S.A.R. Chairwoman Dr Daniela Lesmeister. „What our helpers have achieved in the last few days cannot be honoured enough. It was important for each and every one of us to be there for the people in the disaster region and to contribute the knowledge we have gathered in our many international disaster operations.“
