Storm, Blackout, Grid Failure: Rhineland-Palatinate Stages Its Biggest Civil Protection Drill Yet
Published on 09/26/2026 at 08:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Roughly 5,000 emergency responders will fan out across Rhineland-Palatinate on 26 September 2026 for a statewide exercise day covering fire and disaster protection, with more than 180 individual drills scheduled across the region.
It is the second such state exercise day, following a first run in 2025. Organisers intend to make it an annual fixture on the last Saturday of September, with the next edition already pencilled in for 2027.
A cold front from France sets the scene
The centrepiece scenario imagines a cold front sweeping in from France, bringing heavy torrential rain, violent thunderstorms and gale-force gusts of between 90 and 120 km/h in exposed locations.
The point of the exercise is to put the reporting and communication chains under full load — testing how district authorities, independent cities, the integrated control centres and the situation centre for population protection at the State Office for Fire and Disaster Protection (LfBK) talk to one another.
On the same day, the Rhineland-Palatinate state branch of the ASB workers' Samaritan federation will run a deployment exercise of its own, moving a large number of response vehicles through a staging area at the MEWA Arena.
Mainz rehearses a prolonged power cut
Mainz carries a substantial share of the day's workload. Its fire service joins the statewide effort on 26 September between 8am and roughly 2pm.
The scenario there simulates a drawn-out power failure that cripples communication and supply structures. Around 100 operational and support personnel will rehearse the work of the command staff, the control centre structures and the assembly of a shared situational picture.
To stand in for the loss of the 110 and 112 emergency numbers, several emergency reporting points will be set up and staffed across the city. Their locations can be found through an online portal run by the Mainz professional fire service.
In reality, the emergency numbers remain fully reachable throughout the exercise window. Lord Mayor Nino Haase will visit the control centre and the command staff during the morning to see the procedures in action.
Trier splits its blackout in two stages
Over in Trier, the professional fire service is running a disaster protection exercise titled "Blackout" on 26 September. Some 150 responders are involved, drawn from the professional fire service, eleven volunteer fire brigades, the Maltese relief service and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW).
The simulation has the power going out on the left bank of the Moselle from 9:00, then across the entire city from 10:30.
To keep help within walking distance for residents, 25 emergency contact points will be established in buildings with backup power — fire stations and the town hall among them — as well as in buses and fire service vehicles. The regular electricity supply will not be switched off for the drill, and public life is meant to continue without traffic disruption or sirens.
From a sheep flock to a tunnel collision
Building the annual exercise day into the calendar forms part of a broader push on crisis preparedness. In 2025, a comparable drill took place in Montabaur, simulating an ICE train accident in the Dernbach/Süd tunnel after a collision with a flock of sheep.
Around 400 responders took part in that scenario, which focused on treating 150 casualties in a mass casualty incident (MANV). The current round of exercises in Mainz, Trier and at state level is intended to deepen coordination for large-scale damage events and failures of critical infrastructure.
