Directly after the devastating heavy rain events in July 2021 in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the Disaster Research Unit (DRU) published a short statement on the contribution the DRU has made so far in research projects for the analysis of various flood and heavy rain events in the past and how these could also be taken up in current research projects as part of the reappraisal. On the anniversary of the events, a new DRU blog post takes stock of further work conducted since then and present preliminary results from ATLAS-ENGAGE, among others.