A few days before Christmas Eve, there were already signs of heavy rainfall throughout Lower Saxony and particularly heavy rainfall in the Harz Mountains.
The preliminary planning for dealing with the storm situation by the Salzgitter fire department, the German Red Cross and Johanniter Unfallhilfe had been completed shortly beforehand. A request for support was made to the local THW association in Salzgitter, and the promise of help was not long in coming.
The expected heavy rainfall set in around midday on 23.12.23.
Wallmodener Straße in Ringelheim was the first area to be affected. The Mühlenbach stream was pushing its water towards an AVACON electrical distribution station. Thanks to the rapid deployment of the prepared sandbags in the night from 23 to 24 December 2023, damage to the AVACON building was prevented.
The Mayor of Salzgitter, Frank Klingebiel, and the First City Councillor and Head of the Fire Protection Department, Eric Neiseke, visited the emergency services at the main fire station on Christmas Eve and were briefed on the current situation by the Head of the Fire Service, Arne Sicks.
Both were very satisfied with the preliminary planning and wished the emergency services a Merry Christmas and every success with the tasks ahead.
By 18:00 on 26.12.23, the emergency services had to deal with 40 storm-related incidents in the city. Logistics components from the Salzgitter fire department also traveled to Wolfenbüttel to support the emergency services there. Furthermore, the Salzgitter fire department itself ensured the supply of empty sandbags on December 24th. In addition to their own replenishment, the reorders for the district of Goslar and the city of Wolfenbüttel were taken from the dealer and delivered to the neighbors.
In parallel to the operations in the city area, around 20,000 sandbags have been tirelessly filled since December 23rd by volunteer firefighters with the support of firefighters from the district of Goslar. Without this voluntary effort, the operation would not have been so successful.
A total of around 250 volunteers from the volunteer fire department, the DRK, the JUH and the THW had been working alongside the full-time staff of the Salzgitter fire brigade since December 23.
On 26.12.23 at around 13:30, a request was received from the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior to set up a fire department standby unit. At present, the planning for the deployment of a fire department standby unit has been completed. The fire department standby will be available from 27.12.2023 and can be deployed if necessary.
The water levels of the Innersten, Fuhse, Warne and other streams are continuously monitored so that we can continue to react quickly to changes.