Mayors split over ending storm emergency declarations

LRT and BNS report that Lithuanian mayors disagree on whether municipal emergency declarations issued after a storm should be formally revoked, after the Government declared a state-level emergency last week.

Kazlų Rūda said on Thursday that it had cancelled its municipal-level emergency declaration. Other mayors told BNS that they did not plan to revoke theirs, while some said the declarations had automatically ceased to apply when the state-level emergency was introduced.

Darius Buta, a representative of the National Crisis Management Center, said municipal emergency declarations essentially no longer applied after the Government introduced the state-level emergency regime.

“If a state-level emergency is declared for the same reasons, the municipal-level emergency ceases to apply,” he told BNS.

Municipal-level emergencies had also been declared in the districts of Anykščiai, Biržai, Telšiai, Ignalina, Mažeikiai and Kupiškis.

Kazlų Rūda said it had cancelled its declaration after assessing that the main threats to residents’ safety and the provision of essential services had diminished, while the need for additional measures to manage the situation had largely disappeared.

The municipality said isolated power outages remained, but their scale no longer justified continuing the emergency. It added that the removal of the storm’s consequences and resolution of remaining disruptions would continue, if necessary, through standard procedures established by law.

Kupiškis and Biržai cancel declarations

Algirdas Raslanas, mayor of the Kupiškis district, told BNS on Friday that the situation had ended and there was no longer an emergency.

He said the municipality’s emergency declaration had automatically ceased to apply under the law when the central government declared a state-level emergency. The municipality did not issue a new declaration because all residents had regained electricity by Thursday evening.

According to Raslanas, the municipality had received six requests for compensation for storm-related damage. More requests were arriving each day as officials assessed the total cost.

Municipal rules provide compensation for repairs to residential and farm buildings, he said. In several cases, falling trees had severely damaged homes, including about two cases in which trees broke through houses.

There had not yet been any requests concerning cemeteries, although two burial sites had been heavily damaged. Raslanas said such requests could arrive gradually over the next month.

“The state has chosen other areas; we do not compensate for what the state covers. We are prepared to help people repair their real estate,” the Kupiškis district mayor said.

Jurga Bagamolovienė, director of the Biržai municipal administration and head of the municipality’s emergency operations centre, also said the municipal-level emergency had automatically ceased when the Government declared the higher-level emergency.

She said Biržai had nevertheless formally cancelled its declaration through an administrative order.

The municipality had received three requests concerning damage: two seeking support from the mayor’s reserve and one for material assistance through social services. More requests were expected.

As of Wednesday, utility services had been restored in the municipality, except for possible isolated disruptions of which officials had not been informed.

Biržai Mayor Kęstutis Knizikevičius said electricity had been restored across the district at the beginning of the week, water supply disruptions had been resolved earlier, and all trees that had fallen onto power lines had been removed.