The entire Monday morning was marked by the after-effects of the 24-hour power blackout. She had just tried to get the telephone system up and running. "Try to reach a technician if you don't have a phone," she says, annoyed. Saturday, she says, her pharmacy had to remain closed because the medicine picker that transports the medicines up from the basement does not work without electricity. "Medical supplies were not guaranteed here in Neunkirchen during the power cut," Kaltenbach says worriedly. She has since reordered the medicines, which have to be kept refrigerated.

Giuseppe Lombardo, owner of the Domenico ice cream parlour, also lament high property damage: "All my ice cream melted away, and I also had to dispose of a lot of frozen goods like frozen fruit and paninis," the ice cream parlour owner laments. He accurately documented that the power went out at around 8.45 pm on Friday evening and that the lights only came back on at around 11 pm on Saturday. His ice cream parlour had been without electricity for 27 hours. Now he is asking himself who is liable for this. "On the Westnetz website, you can fill in everything and state your damage, but whether that will help in the end, I don't know," says Lombardi.

Still, in his opinion, property damage is one thing and health is another. "I took my parents to my flat because their flat was really cold and luckily I have a stove," he says. Moreover, he has now experienced first-hand how dependent he is on electricity in the meantime: "I have a respirator and couldn't sleep the whole night," he complains. He went shopping in Birk, but everything there was hopelessly overcrowded. "At the bakery, all the bread was sold out, so I went to Hochhausen, but they had nothing left either," he recalls.

The power failure triggered a whole chain reaction. At some point, his mobile phone battery ran out, his landline phone did not work, and he could not use the internet without electricity. So he could not get any information about the current situation, and he did not feel well informed by the local police and fire brigade: "I would like to see an information point at the market, or that the fire brigade drives through the main street with a megaphone so that people know what is going on even without a mobile phone and internet," says Lombardi.

District Administrator Sebastian Schuster draws the following conclusion: "Such an event also gives cause to think about improvements and changes. One thing this situation - like the flood disaster on a much larger scale - has shown: Utilities need to think about back-up systems.“ There need to be alternative systems that take effect in the event of a failure. But the utility did everything possible over the weekend to get power back to people as quickly as possible, he said. "I would like to sincerely thank all those involved who worked hand in hand at full speed to rectify the problem; the electricity supplier, the municipalities, the emergency services and fire brigades, the police and the Rhein-Sieg district deserve special mention here," said Schuster.

Almost all shopping shops had to remain closed on Saturday, and even two days after the long power outage, shoppers were presented with an unusual picture: the frozen food shelves as well as the bakery section of freshly baked rolls were still empty.

"We had to throw away all of the frozen baked goods," said an employee of a discounter. Instead of a Sunday off, she and her colleagues had a 60-hour week behind them: "We had to clear out all the refrigerated shelves, and the whole Monday morning is also pure disaster," she says, visibly stressed. Udo Schäfer from the butcher's shop Werner's had to dispose of everything that was at the front of the counter. The things from the cold store could still be saved: "If there is a power failure, an alarm goes off immediately. Then a refrigerated truck from Siegburg comes to pick up the endangered goods directly," says Schäfer. (Original text: Scarlet Schmitz / Translation: Mareike Graepel)