Emergent, extending, expanding and established citizen disaster response in the German Ahr valley flood in 2021

Abstract

Western Europe experienced extreme heavy rainfall events with subsequent floods and flash floods from the 13 to the 15 July 2021, which led to over 180 fatalities in Germany. In many places, the professional disaster management units were completely overwhelmed and only partially functional; thus, this situation could only be addressed with the support of citizens. Focusing on the emergency response phase in the municipality of Mayschoβ located in the Ahr valley, the research questions in this paper are as follows: What kind of citizen responses emerged? How did these responses interact with professional disaster management structures? The main finding reveals the emergence of a new form of citizen-led crisis management, “semiprofessional crisis management team”, which 1. makes use of professional knowledge on disaster and crisis management; 2. expands and supplements this knowledge with traditional forms of local nongovernmental civic engagement; and 3. subordinates the structures of professional disaster management to achieve locally defined goals in emergency response. We also discuss the emergence of these new forms of crisis management via an elaboration of the Disaster Research Center typology of organized behavior and volunteer engagement with reference to local institutions (e.g., wine cooperatives, “neighborhoods” or associations).