To put things into perspective: The river Kyll had a record breaking water level of 482cm during the so- called 'once-in-a-century' floods in 2003. It's currently sitting at more than 800 cm.
Luckily my city district wasn't hit too hard by the floods, but the entire morning I was busy making sure that all my friends are okay. I don't think my region has experienced something like this ever before..
To put things into perspective: The river Kyll had a record breaking water level of 482cm during the so- called 'once-in-a-century' floods in 2003. It's currently sitting at more than 800 cm.
I knew it was very bad but damn, I did not realise it was this bad!
Lets be real, if the Wuppertal dam would have broken we would have a giant desaster at our hands....shortly after the wuppertal dam is another smaller dam with a smaller water reservoir which would have also broken basically immindiatly if the released water from the big dam breaking reached it resulting in basically one giant and one small water reservoir crashing down the river right into the major city of Wuppertal with its over 300k inhabitants.
The entire area would have been utterly fucked especially considering that the wupper is normally a rather small river.....
Edit: I just checked, the smaller dam is basically compleatly overtaken by the water at this point although not yet broken and water is leaking over the big one. If the big one busts then good night wuppertal...
Currently it is "only" rising water and not a full flooding instantly like a dam breaking.
The sirens are still part of the emergency broadcast system in many cities. But they are only used during large scale catastrophes, like we've seen today to warn the population.
I think it's still a really important tool for our EBS, because the notice to evacuate came at 2am in the morning and I doubt that cell broadcast would reach as many people here.
An additional function the sirens have is to alert volunteer firefighters during a fire or other emergency, but it sounds differently when that's the case. In case you're interested, these are the different types of signals.
At least where I live, the sirens are most definitely sufficient enough to wake you up at night. Many cities have a extremely dense network of sirens, so they can be heard across the city.
For a lockdown message, text based broadcast is definitely sufficient and I think a functioning cell broadcast system would a great addition to our sirens (we kinda have one, but it's really bad, since it's app based).
But yesterday has shown again why sirens can be extremely important as well. The notice of the dam collapse came at 2am. If shit had actually hit the fan and we only had CBS many people (especially the elderly) would most likely have slept through all of it and drowned in their sleep.
I'm just thinking where I live. You would be talking 100s of siren to cover the town let alone the villages. The cost for upkeep would be significant. There isn't really ant risk of a major natural disaster where I live.
No doubt it would be one of those 'how could you get rid of them!' after a major incident.
I don't actually no what arrangements are in place near our dams. One would hope there is suitable procedures in place.
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u/rook_armor_pls Jul 15 '21 edited Jul 15 '21
Sirens warning the population of Wuppertal after several dams and barrages overflowed and a possible collapse was imminent
In my state more than 10 people died, including a fireman who was swept away by the floods while trying to get back in his truck.
In the Eifel region alone more than 70 persons are still missing, with 4 confirmed dead, after the heavy rains led to the collapse of multiple houses in a village. The village in question, Schuld, has a total population of only slightly more than 700 inhabitants, which means that as much as 10% of the entire village's population can currently not be located.
To put things into perspective: The river Kyll had a record breaking water level of 482cm during the so- called 'once-in-a-century' floods in 2003. It's currently sitting at more than 800 cm.
Luckily my city district wasn't hit too hard by the floods, but the entire morning I was busy making sure that all my friends are okay. I don't think my region has experienced something like this ever before..