Storm recovery advances, but thousands remain without power

The situation is gradually improving in Anykščiai district and Kazlų Rūda municipality nearly a week after a severe storm struck Lithuania, LRT reported, citing ELTA. However, electricity disruptions are still being repaired, water supplies must be maintained and trees fallen onto roads and power lines must be cleared.

Both municipalities have declared emergency situations because of the storm’s effects. About 6,000 electricity customers remain without power in Anykščiai district and about 450 in Kazlų Rūda. At the beginning of the week, the figures were nearly 9,800 and 1,200 respectively.

Anykščiai faces more difficult conditions

Anykščiai District Mayor Kęstutis Tubis said the municipality still had to maintain the operation of some water supply facilities and wastewater treatment plants using generators.

“At present, we are still supplying many water supply and wastewater treatment facilities with generators brought in by Anykščių vandenys,” Tubis told ELTA.

The municipality has also received four generators from ESO. They are being moved between different parts of the district: once power is restored in one settlement, a generator is transferred to another location where it is more urgently needed.

Tubis said the municipality was helping ESO identify places where power lines had been damaged. Municipal district employees and members of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union are using drones to gather information about trees that have fallen onto the lines.

“Today, when speaking with an ESO regional representative, he asked us to identify locations where trees had fallen onto low-voltage lines and send the coordinates, because ESO does not know where those lines were cut,” the mayor said.

Tubis said power restoration in Anykščiai district could proceed faster if ESO deployed more personnel there. He also criticised communication about the restoration process, saying the information provided to residents did not always reflect the situation on the ground.

At the same time, he acknowledged that communication between ESO and the municipality had improved over the past week.

Fewer customers without power in Kazlų Rūda

Power is being restored more quickly in Kazlų Rūda municipality. Mayor Mantas Varaška said about 450 customers currently remained without electricity, almost three times fewer than at the beginning of the week.

However, the number of faults could still change as smaller damaged power lines are discovered, Varaška said.

Even after electricity is restored in part of a settlement, individual addresses may remain without power because of damage to smaller lines. The mayor said that outages can affect not only substations and high-voltage lines, but also smaller lines serving parts of a settlement.

The municipality is not announcing specific deadlines for restoring electricity to residents’ homes. According to Varaška, ESO specialists decide the order of restoration based on the condition of the network and the number of customers affected.