(pm/ea) – On Saturday, the regional division of the Gelnhausen Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) held an exercise in the municipal area of Freigericht. The purpose of the exercise was to practice the cooperation of management units in a THW working group.
The operational structure of the Technical Rescue Organization is set up like that of the fire brigades and other aid organizations in Germany, on the basis of uniform service regulations. This ensures the best cooperation in case of an emergency. The elementary principle of the training here is regular exercises to check the level of performance and increase the operational value.
The assumed damage scenario on the day of the exercise was a hurricane with wind speeds of up to 130 km/h (gusts of up to 150 km/h) and rainfall of up to 50 l/m² in the Main-Kinzig district. This caused great damage in the district area, especially in the community of Freigericht.
How realistic this scenario can not only be experienced last year in the Ahr Valley, but also in the same evening in the area of the city of Gelnhausen. There was local flooding due to heavy rain with a rainfall of 30 l/m² in a very short time. Due to the rain, many cellars were full and a total of about 100 emergency services from the fire brigade, DRK and THW were on duty.
For the exercise, it was assumed that the local emergency services in the municipality of Freigericht required a THW level II task force (>150 workforce). An unclear area assumed the damage situation.
At 9:00 am, the training subunits prepared their home town formation for action and the platoon command center assembled the subunits assigned to technical platoons. At the same time, an advance commando began to contact TEL Freigericht and took command of the approaching technical train.
A command post was established by specialist trains for leadership and communication in the local branch of Gelnhausen and technical trains were distributed over the municipal area. The task was to explore the individual districts of the Freigericht community and deal with the damage they found. Notices describing the storm damage were distributed in the municipal area of Freigericht before the start of the damage description exercise.
The exercise lasted until around 4:00 pm A total of around 70 emergency services from the regional areas of Gelnhausen and Frankfurt were involved.
The exercise was successful. Much knowledge was gained, which was incorporated into the improvement of leadership training and improved management skills of the THW in future major disasters. In particular, cooperation between train command posts and command posts and staff was considered. The resulting consultation is to be incorporated into a management training course in March 2023, as reported by THW in conclusion.
Photo: THW