Organizational and communication requirements of the City of Cologne within a decentralized system
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This presentation dealt with the organization of the Cologne Fire Brigade, within the context of the German decentralized system.
One of the main roles of the Fire Brigade in the event of a disaster is to manage the crisis and to coordinate its forces. A crisis room in the Fire Brigade premises is allocated to this task.
In Germany, each city has its own crisis management organization and carries out its own crisis plan. This decentralized organization presents some obvious advantages for cities, but there are also several drawbacks.
One of the disavantages is the possible lack of coordination between cities if a disaster occurs over a territory covering several of them.
At present, the coordination between the cities is only based on the good will of authorities and on the relationships between neighbouring cities.
This could be improved if the central government :
- organized the cooperation between the fire fighters of different cities,
- drew up a masterplan or guidelines to help the cities work out their crisis plan.
Similarly, there is also a need for coordination between the hospitals of neighbouring cities, for the medical care of injured people and their allocation to various hospitals, in the event of a major accident.
Another wish highlighted in this presentation is to secure the communication system, in order to ensure that it is not disrupted by the disaster (for example positioning computers above the highest known water level in the event of a flood).
Newsletter 7 on Workshop 6: Risk management and training
