New water defence statutes adopted by the City of Chemnitz
At its meeting today, Chemnitz City Council decided to update the city's water defence statutes. The most recent statutes dated back to 2014 and had to be adapted to the amended underlying legislation and the expanded scope of duties of the water defence service.
New areas of activity have arisen primarily due to the fact that the flood defences on the Würschnitz have been largely completed and the new task of inland drainage has been added. Up to 35 pumps including emergency power generators and auxiliary equipment are used for this. In order to manage the tasks of the water defence, the water defence management coordinates the interdepartmental action, which ranges from the transport of the flood pumps to the water inspection and the coordination of the sandbag filling stations.
Another new feature of the statutes is an on-call system that has been established in order to bring the flood defence volunteers to the scene quickly in the event of an incident and to support the flood defence technology deployed. The up to 426 employees on flood duty are offered internal training programmes in line with their tasks.
Background
The City of Chemnitz takes the necessary personnel, material and organisational measures (water defence service) to prevent hazards caused by flooding and ice. It provides technical resources, informs the population about flood hazards and issues warnings in accordance with the specified alarm and deployment plans.