After strong winds and torrential rain over the weekend, many Lithuanian municipalities are assessing the damage and eliminating the effects of the storm on Monday – some residents are without water, electricity, mobile communications, or heating.<\/p>\n
The Kazl\u0173 R\u016bda municipality decided to declare a state of emergency due to this.<\/p>\n
“The situation is such that now we have not only any electricity supply, but also other issues related to electricity supply. The number of people who continue to be completely without connection is increasing, who can only call within a kilometer or two of leaving their homes, from homesteads, and report that they have problems,” Kazl\u0173 R\u016bda Mayor Mantas Vara\u0161ka told BNS on Monday.<\/p>\n
Read alsoVilnius is still recovering from the storm: “Grinda” revealed the extent of the disaster<\/a>Waste crisis deepens in New Vilnius: environmentalists suggest looking for another location<\/a><\/p>\n According to him, the municipality is also facing a drinking water crisis, and there are areas where roads are impassable and residents need to have food delivered.<\/p>\n “Thousands of people have not received water for the second day. We need to solve this not only by resuming the operation of water points, but also by supplying water to various more remote settlements. In a few hours, registration will begin at the homestead due to both water and food problems, because on the second day, other people do not have enough food supplies or no longer have the opportunity to freeze them, and products in refrigerators are also spoiling,” said the mayor of Kazl\u0173 R\u016bda.<\/p>\n Will ask for help from soldiers<\/p>\n According to him, on Monday, about 2 thousand consumers in the municipality were not connected to the electricity grid, which is about 3 thousand people.<\/p>\n According to M. Vara\u0161ka, the Energy Distribution Operator (ESO) informed that electricity supply to some people will be restored only on August 27\u201329.<\/p>\n In addition, the municipality has been forced to temporarily close parks and recreation areas that are dangerous for people to visit due to fallen trees and broken branches.<\/p>\n “Without an emergency, we cannot use statutory organizations or soldiers. We will immediately contact the Ministry of National Defence about them. Representatives of the military participated in a joint meeting with us and said that, having received permission from the leadership, they could certainly help both in terms of eliminating the consequences and in terms of reaching and transporting food, water, and medical supplies to homesteads and settlements that are the most remote and still difficult to reach due to the storm in our territory,” M. Vara\u0161ka told BNS.<\/p>\n According to him, since mobile communication has not been restored everywhere in the municipality, the municipality does not know how many residents need help.<\/p>\n “I think there may be more such signals today,” he said.<\/p>\n Residents of the municipality are allowed to remove dangerous, fallen trees on their plots without written permission until September 10.<\/p>\n Commenting on the government’s decision not to declare a state of emergency, the mayor of Kazl\u0173 R\u016bda said that the authorities in the capital do not understand the extent of the damage caused by the disaster.<\/p>\n “I will tell you frankly, since most of the members of the Government, clerks, heads of ESO, heads of the Ministry of Energy, and shuls live in Vilnius, for whom electricity was restored within half a day, it is natural that such people do not really imagine what it means to live without electricity for two or three days, and some people were sent messages that electricity would be restored only on August 27-29,” M. Vara\u0161ka told BNS.<\/p>\n Anyk\u0161\u010diai is also considering an emergency situation<\/p>\n Anyk\u0161\u010diai District Mayor K\u0119stutis Tubis told BNS that the situation in the area is quite complicated. According to him, almost 10 consumers are facing electricity supply problems on Monday, and some mobile communication services are also out of service.<\/p>\n According to the mayor, hot water problems are also being recorded, and some wastewater treatment plants are not working.<\/p>\n “We are electing an Emergency Situations Commission, and there are indications that an emergency situation will need to be declared, because if wastewater management is not restored, it cannot enter nature untreated,” K. Tubis told BNS on Monday.<\/p>\n “I see that the state needs cardinal and decisive decisions, especially regarding electricity supply, distribution, and perhaps even the activities of companies,” the mayor emphasized.<\/p>\n According to him, ESO is not able to quickly deal with the consequences of the storm. The mayor confirmed that he received a message that the power supply would only be restored by Friday.<\/p>\n According to K. Tubis, gas stations were closed in Anyk\u0161\u010diai on Sunday, and there was no mobile communication.<\/p>\n “Only at 13 p.m. did Viada bring a generator. We provided one generator for the gas station from Anyk\u0161\u010diai Vandenai so that people could fill up with fuel. Our fire department, which is eliminating the consequences, had to borrow fuel from a farmer, and later we restored the gas station’s operations,” he said.<\/p>\n The mayor claimed that he would talk to gas station representatives about how work should be organized in such a situation.<\/p>\n Cemetery damaged in Kaunas district<\/p>\n According to Kaunas District Municipality Mayor Valerijus Mak\u016bnas, the situation in the municipality remains difficult, but there are no plans to declare an emergency yet. According to him, the available resources are sufficient to resolve the situation.<\/p>\n “There is no need (to declare an emergency – BNS), the situation is under control,” the mayor told BNS on Monday.<\/p>\n In Kaunas district, electricity supply has not yet been restored to 8 thousand 478 consumers, 419 disruptions have been recorded, and 27 brigades are eliminating the faults. Although water supply was also disrupted over the weekend, V. Mak\u016bnas assured that this problem has already been resolved.<\/p>\n “There were water problems, but currently the water supply in the Kaunas district has been restored. Last night, the only problem was in the village of Pagyn\u0117, and we were supplying water by truck, and in the evening the water supply was restored,” said the mayor.<\/p>\n “Of course, the most difficult situation remains in remote, forested areas. This concerns the areas of \u010ceki\u0161k\u0117, Zapy\u0161kis, Babtai, and especially Panev\u0117\u017eys. And the very serious consequences of the storm in Zapy\u0161kis, Zapy\u0161kis eldership, would cause many evacuations,” he said.<\/p>\n According to the mayor, many trees and branches have fallen on power lines, so only ESO specialists can remove them. Many trees have also been uprooted in cemeteries.<\/p>\n “There are many graves in cemeteries, so we still have to (make a decision today – BNS) on how we will proceed in restoring or contributing to the reconstruction of people’s monuments,” he said.<\/p>\n In order to ensure electricity supply, the municipality is distributing generators to residents and institutions. According to V. Mak\u016bnas, the municipality has currently provided six generators and could provide more if necessary.<\/p>\n In addition, the mayor emphasized that local communities made a significant contribution to managing the effects of the storm.<\/p>\n Missed the hazard warning<\/p>\n Panev\u0117\u017eys District Mayor Antanas Pocius assured BNS that the situation in the region on Monday morning was not tragic. According to him, a decision on a municipal-level emergency situation will be made once the necessary data is received.<\/p>\n “We are now collecting all the information. Information about electricity, water, buildings, and cemeteries needs to come to the municipality from all places. We will collect information on the scale of the losses, and then we will look at it,” he said.<\/p>\n After declaring an emergency, larger funds from the mayor’s reserve may be used for the operational elimination of the consequences. According to A. Pocius, there are already people who want to receive compensation for the consequences of the storm.<\/p>\n The mayor testified that on Monday, all municipal employees who could help solve the problems caused were recalled from vacation.<\/p>\n The head of the Panev\u0117\u017eys district municipality said on Monday that he had missed information about the impending danger.<\/p>\n “Speaking of the danger, I am a little disappointed with the information. However, there was talk of a certain wind, certain gusts, but there was a great danger across the whole of Lithuania, so they should probably act differently,” he explained.<\/p>\n “We agreed that this week we will invite smart people who are familiar with the situation, in order to create an algorithm for how we should act when receiving such reports,” emphasized the mayor of Panev\u0117\u017eys district.<\/p>\n You take care of yourself.<\/p>\n According to Utena District Mayor Marijus Kauk\u0117nas, the biggest problem on Monday is power outages, which is why there is no water supply in some places.<\/p>\n According to him, despite the fact that ESO employees are eliminating faults, their number has even increased.<\/p>\n “The number of outages, as far as we can see from yesterday’s information, has even increased from 127 to 150 in the Utena district. However, the number of people without electricity has decreased,” the mayor told BNS.<\/p>\n “Of course, we still have problems with ESO and with water supply, especially in the neighborhoods. The Utena Water Company is bringing generators to areas where there is no water, connecting them and restoring the water supply,” he said.<\/p>\n According to M. Kauk\u0117nas, the municipality is capable of eliminating the consequences of the storm itself and does not see the need to declare an emergency.<\/p>\n “I think we will manage, but not in one day, because in public spaces, both in villages, in neighborhoods, and in the city, the cleaning of fallen branches and trees is taking place. Of course, in some places, pruning work requires more time, because it is not so easy to climb tall trees and clean them there, but this process is taking place in the villages. People themselves have joined in – they are clearing the roads of fallen trees,” the mayor of Utena district asserted.<\/p>\n Alytus District Mayor Rasa Vitkauskien\u0117 told BNS that no major damage was caused to the municipality. However, the situation is still to be discussed with the elders.<\/p>\n “The situation here is not very bad, but there are still residents who do not have electricity, there are broken trees. However, our services are responding and fixing it,” the mayor told BNS.<\/p>\n “If someone needs special help, with generators or other means, whatever we can do as a municipality, we will definitely help our residents,” she said.<\/p>\n According to R. Vitkauskien\u0117, 146 power supply disruptions were recorded in the Alytus district on Monday morning and over 800 subscribers were disconnected, and ten ESO crews are carrying out maintenance work.<\/p>\n According to the Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service, over the weekend, some parts of Lithuania received almost the entire amount of precipitation for the month of August in half a day.<\/p>\n A catastrophic meteorological phenomenon is very heavy rain, when its intensity exceeds 80 mm within 12 hours, reached in \u0160ilut\u0117 – 82,5 mm (93% of the August norm). Natural rain was recorded elsewhere.<\/p>\n On Saturday, wind gusts reached 33 meters per second, such strength was recorded in Vent\u0117 Cape and Nida by the sea, but in many places the wind speed exceeded 20 meters per second.<\/p>\n According to ESO data, just over 111 consumers still had no electricity before noon on Monday.<\/p>\n Authors: J\u016brat\u0117 Sk\u0117ryt\u0117, Karolina Ambrazaityt\u0117, Paulius Perminas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After strong winds and torrential rain over the weekend, many Lithuanian municipalities are assessing the damage and eliminating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[93],"tags":[71359,171,5547,170],"class_list":["post-151351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vilnius","tag-audra","tag-lithuania","tag-naujiena","tag-vilnius"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117150104135526547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}