Civil protection

A disaster within the meaning of the law is an event that endangers or impairs the life, health or vital supplies of the population, animals, significant material assets or the natural basis of life to such an unusual extent that the uniform management of all disaster control measures and the deployment of disaster control units and facilities are required to remedy the situation.

As a rule, the deployment in the event of a disaster is based on the deployment of the forces involved in day-to-day hazard prevention, involves these forces to the full extent and differs from them in that the command and communication structure changes as a result of the unified command by the body with overall political responsibility, the greatly increased number of emergency services and, in most cases, the longer duration of the deployment and the involvement of the general administration. This fact must be taken into account in all disaster control planning in order to ensure a standardised management structure and sensible use of all human and material resources.

According to Section 34 of the Hessian Law on Fire Protection, General Assistance and Disaster Control (HBKG), the occurrence and end of a disaster (the "disaster case") must be determined by the lower disaster control authority (KatS authority) and publicised by radio, television, daily newspapers or other means, stating the extent of the affected area.

The decision as to whether a disaster exists must be examined in each individual case in accordance with the criteria set out in Section 24 HBKG. This means that the so-called disaster threshold can vary greatly, especially as it is always subject to subjective judgement,

• whether there is an imminent danger (e.g. a possible release of hazardous substances with the need for evacuation) or
• the extent of damage that has already occurred is so unusual that uniform control of the operation (by a disaster control command - KatSL - with disaster control staff - KatS-Stab - see No. 2.1.3.1) is necessary at all for tactical reasons or whether the organisational regulations for daily hazard prevention are not sufficient (as is the case, for example, with most flood situations on the rivers in Hesse).

There is no such thing as a "disaster" per se, calculable according to fixed damage scenarios. The decisive factor is the extent of a hazard or damage that fulfils the criteria of Section 24 HBKG in the individual case in order to be able to determine a disaster according to this definition.