After the floods of July 2021 in the Ahr valley, tens of thousands of volunteers came to help. Within days, local people set up the Helfer-Shuttle, the helper shuttle. Buses collected volunteers at points on the heights and took them down into the valley. The Bavarian fire-service journal brandwacht later called it probably the most important institution of the spontaneous helpers. It estimated that about 50,000 such helpers came by September. The chair of an expert commission said: die Einbindung in den Stab hat nirgends funktioniert, the integration into the crisis staff worked nowhere. The main criticisms were poor coordination of the helpers and poor communication by the authorities.