The floods in July 2021 hit people in Aachen - especially in the southern area - hard in some cases. Since then, the city and other stakeholders have been working to improve flood protection in the areas at risk using various means and strategies. The city of Aachen now wants to invest in an innovative mobile flood protection system. This will enable both full-time and voluntary staff to act quickly. Above all, it can also be used by the local population itself and thus strengthens self-help.

Lord Mayor Dr. Michael Ziemons, together with residents and experts from the administration, recently saw for himself the simple and effective functionality of the free-standing plastic system, which is stable solely due to the pressure of the accumulated water. "Five years after the flood disaster, one thing is clear: we can't prevent extreme weather - but we can be better prepared for it. To this end, we are working hand in hand with committed local citizens. The mobile flood protection system is an effective tool with which people in the south of the city can better protect themselves. This is responsibility in action, community preparedness and an important step towards greater safety in times of climate change," says Ziemons.

It is primarily intended for the districts of Hahn, Friesenrath and Sief. Should heavy rainfall cause water levels to rise there again in the future, action can be taken quickly. "The damming elements are easy to place and assemble, are lightweight and can be set up by anyone," explains Philipp Allwißner, head of the newly created staff unit for safety and strategic hazard prevention. The advantages over the conventional method of "stacking sandbags" are obvious: one meter of the 50-centimetre-high modular system weighs 13 kilograms. "Anyone can easily lift and set it up," says Allwißner. A sandbag dam of the same height and length, on the other hand, requires around 45 bags, which corresponds to 900 kilograms of sand. Modules with a total length of around one kilometer are now to be procured for the three districts. They will be stored close to the site so that people can set them up quickly in an emergency.

During the site inspection in Friesenrath, numerous practical issues such as the required quantity of flood protection elements and potential storage locations were discussed. A project group is now taking care of all these points in detail - including the training of the relief workers. The voluntary project coordination is being carried out locally by a committed citizen: Frank Wagemann.

On the part of the City of Aachen, the Department of Climate and Environment with the Lower Water Authority and the city's climate protection manager are involved in addition to the Department of Security and Strategic Hazard Prevention, which is based at the Lord Mayor's office. The city cooperates closely with the local citizens' initiative "HSI" (Hochwasser-Schutz-Initiative Friesenrath-Hahn-Sief-Kornelimünster). The aim is for the mobile flood protection system to be available to people in the southern part of Aachen in the summer of 2026.