Organising for Socio-Natural Disasters in Germany – Institutional Crisis Preparedness in the Case of Floods After 2002

Within twelve years Germany has suffered from two so-called centennial floods (2002, 2013). Though these events are usually considered natural phenomena, their genesis, development and consequences are interpreted as affected by the “wicked issue” of anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, the problem and the solution of disaster response is about another wicked problem, or the “philosopher’s stone” of public administration, i.e. coordination. The paper assesses how government organizes for flood disasters after 2002. After the “signature crisis” of the Elbe flash flood in 2002, policy changed in programmatic, organizational and legal terms. A new federal office for civil security met a traditionally and constitutionally decentralized disaster response system. Did the strategy of a "lead agency" substantiate in responding to the 2013 flood? How did it affect intergovernmental coordination? Applying Kettl’s (2003) contingent coordination framework to this case, the formal centralization and its probable institutional effects for crisis preparedness are illuminated.