Recent floods have hit parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. The water masses pose an immediate danger - with many different effects on the basic infrastructures in the affected areas. In addition to transport infrastructures, water and electricity supplies also collapsed in some places.

The fact that in this way - without electricity - electronic communication by telephone or via messages was also shut down made warning systems via apps such as KATWARN or NINA almost useless. Even the public authorities’ own digital radio of the police, fire brigade and ambulance services was down, at least temporarily.

In an interview with Stefan Eich, emergenCITY’s scientific coordinator Matthias Hollick talks about problems for communication technologies in the crisis - and possible solutions: From new ideas for connectivity to necessary specifications for resilient - rather than exclusively efficient - design of communication systems.

You can listen to the entire four-and-a-half-minute interview in the SWR Audiothek.