SANDSACKMANAGEMENT

Four municipalities along the Bavarian-Austrian border (Neuhaus am Inn, Schärding, St. Florian am Inn and Brunnenthal) have taken steps to mitigate the damage caused by increasingly frequent weather and natural disasters. The floods that severely affected the Schärding region in 2013 made local actors (local authorities and fire departments) aware of the importance of joint action and the development of protective infrastructure. To this end, the Sandsackmanagement project was launched, which laid the foundations for joint flood and disaster protection on both banks of the Inn between 2015 and 2018.

One of the objectives of the project, which was supported by the Interreg program, was to establish a disaster control center in the town of Schärding, where flood protection equipment (e.g., mobile dams, motorboats) and sandbags can be stored. In addition to the necessary quantity of sand and bags, six thousand pre-filled bags are kept on standby at the site in case of flash floods caused by sudden heavy rainfall. The involvement of the German side was also necessary in setting up the joint infrastructure, as the nearest similar facility on the Bavarian side is 30 kilometers away. In order to ensure that the joint storage and use of sandbags in an emergency situation works as expected, it was necessary to develop a uniform alarm and operation plan.