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Ambassador Visits German Relief Workers Helping to Pump Floodwaters Out of New Orleans

Help: Ambassador Ischinger, center, and Houston Consul General Münzel, left, visited the THW team in New Orleans on September 12.

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German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger traveled to Louisiana’s Gulf Coast on September 12 and visited the team of experts from Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) who have been working in New Orleans since the weekend. He was joined by Houston German Consul General Rainer Münzel. Ambassador Ischinger, shocked by the extent of destruction in the city, thanked the experts, mostly volunteers, who are working under very difficult weather and technical conditions to help pump floodwaters out of the city and adjacent parishes.

Mission: Ambassador Ischinger speaks to THW team members in Louisiana.

“As far as we know, we are the first team on location here and most certainly the first with such a large and deployment-ready technical group,” Ambassador Ischinger said during the one-day visit. “The THW team has been in operation almost from the moment they landed.”

Help: A THW team member describes the pumping work to Ambassador Ischinger, left.

The THW mission includes 89 experts in water damage/pumping and infrastructure and a five-person support team from the Cross of St. John; they are joined by five members of the Luxembourg Civil Defense. The group arrived in New Orleans on September 8. The TWH team brought with them 15 high-capacity pumps – 10 which can handle up to 15,000 liters per minute, and 5 which can handle 5,000 liters per minute – and has so far deployed pumps in four locations in the city and in neighboring St. Bernard’s Parish.

Ambassador Ischinger assured the workers that their voluntary willingness to help is very much appreciated by the United States and that President George W. Bush has thanked the German government for the assistance. “Your effort in particular is valued and recognized as a special contribution to German-American friendship.”

The Ambassador went to New Orleans to determine what further assistance the German Embassy and German Consulates can provide to the THW team, as well as to find out what further assistance Germany could provide in the region.

September 13, 2005

Photos by Florian Weber for THW

Fact Sheet: Germany Responds Quickly with Assistance to US in Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (PDF)
(September 20, 2005)

Web Special: Hurricane Katrina - Germany's Efforts

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