The city of Cologne has many different risks to face, as it is an area of 1 million inhabitants, one of the biggest chemical industry sites in Germany, a junction of 10 railways and point of intersection of 10 motorways and many more. It especially faces possible accidents in the chemical industry, of oil tankers on the river Rhine, of tank wagons on the railways, dysfunction of supply lines, earthquakes, storms, floods and terrorism to name but a few. The disaster control in Germany has splitted responsibilities between the federal and the state governments for normal disasters and in case of war. In case of emergency the mayor of Cologne is head of the emergency committee with administrative and organisational function and of the squad leader with operational and tactical function. Both consist of permanent members and have structure plans for emergency situations. Major tasks are the warning of the population, to prepare danger protection plans, to prepare suited plans for special objects and suited plans for special incidents.

The strengths in catastrophe protection in Cologne are the warning of the population, general evacuation plans, emergency plans for chemical industry, plans for medium flooding and the capabilities for a sudden huge amount of wounded. Weaknesses are plans for dysfunction of infrastructure, extreme flooding, epidemics and ABC-situations as well as public relations in case of emergency and securing ways of communication for the city administration. Problems occur since there are less members in aid services available, since there are no tactical standards for co-operating on higher levels than just the local or regional settings, since the equipment is outdated and since there are missing facilities and tactical standards for decontamination of people. Also, there are not enough vehicles and tactical standards for extreme situations and missing alternatives in case of dysfunction of hospitals.