Mhe warning day began on Thursday at 10.59 a.m. on the dot with a penetrating warning tone on numerous mobile phones. This probably reached half of all mobile phones in Germany – as long as they were switched on.
“Test warning – nationwide warning day 2022” appeared as a message on the displays and above all the information that there was no danger. This was the first time that the nationwide information system Cell Broadcast was successfully tested, with which large parts of the population can be reached in an emergency even if the network fails.
However, cell broadcast can only reach newer mobile phones, a list is published by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance. Shortly after 11 a.m., however, a second limitation became clear: the newer cell phones also have to be updated regularly. If you didn’t install the current operating system, you didn’t get a message or a warning tone.
Apps mostly worked
The HessenWarn and KatWarn apps also worked largely as expected, sending notifications and an unpleasant tone to all phones that had previously downloaded the app and were turned on.
Sirens are still installed in the state capital of Wiesbaden.
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Image: Civil Protection State Capital Wiesbaden
Sirens, on the other hand, are being used less and less across the country. They have been dismantled more and more over the past decades because they were hardly used anymore. Their importance changed with the flood disaster in the Ahr valley, when many people could not be warned about the water masses in good time, and the war in Ukraine.
Successful siren signals were reported from Hanau, Hofheim, Eltville and Frankfurt-Höchst, although not always so loud that they would have attracted unannounced attention.
In Frankfurt, however, there are currently only two factory locations: in Höchst and Fechenheim. They alerted the surrounding districts of Unterliederbach, Sindlingen and Zeilsheim, the western areas of Nied and Schwanheim as well as Bergen-Enkheim, Riederwald and Seckbach reliably shortly after 11 a.m. and gave the all-clear again at 11.47 a.m.
A template from the Frankfurt fire brigade, according to which 150 sirens are needed for the city area to be on alert, has been with the magistrate for five years. Its processing was last postponed by the Roman parties in February 2022, a few weeks before the start of the Ukraine war, due to the lack of urgency.
