Events like “Hurricane Lothar” on Boxing Day in 1999, the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the plane crash near the Lake Constance the night be-fore July 2nd 2002, or the taking of hostages in a secondary school in Waib-lingen on a Friday afternoon in October 2002 triggered a flood of inquiries reaching the Ministry of the Interior from all over Germany and abroad. They showed that in the event of a major crisis the population and the media have an extensive need for information . Authorities are expected to provide objective, accurate, reliable and up-to-date information. This information can be quickly spread in the internet freeing press offices and crisis teams from the burden of answering all incoming inquiries.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the internet at once became one of the most important sources of information in places all over the world after massive numbers of phone calls had overcharged or even destroyed local telephone networks According to press reports emergency information proce-dures were taken over by private companies in the USA as long as national authorities could offer no alternative. This situation occasionally led to misin-formation. Furthermore internet sites of national authorities were immediately overcharged and thus temporarily inaccessible.
The sites you can access here have been set up in order to prevent such a situation in Baden-Württemberg. On these pages you will find detailed informa-tion in the event of a major crisis.
Ministry of the Interior
