Storm leaves Kazlų Rūda without clinics, children’s centres and electricity

Nearly 2,500 customers in Kazlų Rūda municipality, or about 6,000 residents, remained without electricity as the storm entered its fourth day, LRT reported. The municipality has declared an emergency situation and brought in the military to help clear the damage.

Electricity distribution operator ESO has been unable to restore power to tens of thousands of customers. They are entitled to compensation, while ESO will also cover residents’ direct losses. The maximum compensation is 220 euros.

At the outpatient clinic in Bagotoji village, doctors cannot issue prescriptions to patients online. Staff can provide first aid and administer medication, but telephone consultations are difficult because the connection is extremely poor.

“The calls to the mobile phone… the doctor herself is being called. We run outside, rushing around, both of us. We are trying to solve these problems so that people do not get angry,” said Renata Bieliukienė, an administrator at the Rasuolė Klusevičienė outpatient clinic.

Generators are operating at roughly one in every three or four homes in the settlement. Bagotoji resident Osvaldas Meilus bought his generator earlier because trees would regularly fall and damage power lines in winter. He said residents were expecting electricity to be restored on Thursday.

“I would look for one, buy one or borrow one. In the village, there are berries in the freezer, everything. My wife wants them not to spoil and not to have to throw them away,” Meilus said.

Another Bagotoji resident, Nadežda Maižeišienė, said she had lost electricity, telephone service and refrigeration. Her daughter, who lives in Kazlų Rūda, took her frozen food, but meat and other products had already been left behind when her daughter went shopping.

Several roads remain impassable, and the municipality was surveyed by helicopter on Monday. Outpatient clinics and children’s day centres are not operating, water supply has been disrupted, and many residents have been left without communications. Power lines are hanging dangerously from trees.

Kazlų Rūda Mayor Mantas Varaška criticised ESO, saying the operator was not prepared for the crisis and was failing to comply with the Electricity Law.

“If 270,000 consumers have lost electricity, what do 200 generators solve? Other municipalities even refused to accept this ‘assistance’ because it would turn people against each other by creating a theory about why some received generators and others did not. Of course, ESO must have generators, but it needs tens of thousands,” Varaška said.

The situation is difficult in a large part of Lithuania. Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said the possibility of requesting assistance from Poland had not been ruled out.

“The situation is poor. Let us not sugar-coat it; it is genuinely poor. Public apologies alone are probably not enough. My focus is on resolving the situation as quickly as possible,” Sinkevičius said.

Ramūnas Dilba, an adviser to the president, said Lithuania could seek assistance from the European Commission under a mechanism designed for natural disasters.

Consumers are entitled to compensation if electricity is not restored for more than three days during an emergency. That deadline expired at 3 p.m. on August 25, after which each additional hour without electricity increases the compensation.

“For a customer consuming 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity, a 12-hour delay in restoring the supply means compensation of 47 euros, and it increases the longer the delay continues,” ESO chief Renaldas Radvila said.