File recovery: When things have to happen quickly

Two years later in September 2023: the year has been very wet so far and this is due to the effects of climate change. Other events that are also associated with climate change are extended periods of drought, heatwaves and heavy, incessant rain.

Severe weather has occurred much more frequently in the recent past and this is not only the case in Germany. Countries such as Greece, Spain and even the United States of America have been affected – in the form of serious forest fires or major floods. On a global scale, the summer of 2023 has easily been the hottest since weather records began in 1940, as the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service communicated recently.

The disaster in 2021 made it clear that climate protection measures and other measures designed for adaptation to climate change are urgently required to ensure that there is no repetition of these kinds of scenes in future. The German Environment Minister, Steffi Lemke (Alliance 90/The Greens), underlined this in a statement that she gave recently. ‘We won’t be able to do business or live in exactly the same way as my generation has done during the last 40 years.’ She added, ‘There’s an urgent need for action in the environmental field. We need to make Germany “weather-resistant” for the future,’ because the disastrous floods in the summer of 2021 are now viewed as one of the worst natural disasters in Germany.

File recovery describes the process of restoring damaged files in order to maintain their legibility in the long term. This process is extremely important for maintaining historical records or documents and papers that have to be archived and are subject to statutory retention periods. Various techniques and methods are used when recovering files in order to repair the damaged materials and protect them from any further harm. They include, for example, cleaning, drying and treating the materials.

Recovering files requires expertise, experience and the use of special equipment and materials. It is therefore advisable to contact experts and professional service providers because they have the necessary know-how to guarantee efficient restoration work.

The disaster prevention services in Germany have also been improved in response to the devastating consequences. The ‘Cell Broadcast’ mobile phone warning system has been available across Germany since February 2023. If an emergency develops, mobile phones receive a push notification and emit a piercing sound, depending on the warning level. There is no need for any special app to receive the notification; all the devices that are equipped to receive messages and switched on automatically register with the closest radio cell and are contacted. The operating system works on Apple smartphones from iPhone 6 upwards. Devices with the Android system are compatible from Version 11 upwards.

The aim of the system is to provide improved warnings of possible disasters in future and reach many people. It is a modern alternative to warning sirens, which were dismantled in many places for cost reasons or because of technical obsolescence after the end of the Cold War. They are, however, being reactivated because of these current circumstances.  

The Federal Agency for Civil Protection can also warn about hazards across Germany using its emergency information and message app, known as ‘NINA’. The app is available free of charge, but users have to actively download it. It supports both Android and iOS smartphones. A push notification also provides information about weather warnings, flood information and similar events.

Conclusion

The disastrous floods have been a wake-up call and the responses to them continue to be felt, whether in the form of the ongoing reconstruction work or the introduction of preventive measures. The topic of protecting the environment and global warming will continue to accompany us and we need to find solutions so that there is no repetition of the disastrous events experienced in 2021. 

If an emergency occurs and files are damaged, the process of file recovery is an effective solution and can be a success story, as the example in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler demonstrates, provided that an order is placed for the services quickly and the work is performed correctly.