2024-08-06 07:08:36
Broken power cables – 3 meters to the house
As a portal lrytas.lt said Silvija (real name known to the editors), the electricity supply to the village was interrupted on July 29. 1 hour 05 min. – a tree growing on the roadside of the street could not withstand the wind. As it turned, it severed overhead power cables hanging nearby and also brought down 3 poles.
“Falled wires were hanging or lying down and blocking entrances to 4 yards. The distance from one house entrance to the lying wires was less than 8 meters. “Unfortunately, it was not possible for part of the population to go to work or work remotely (there was no electricity or internet connection) that Monday,” the interviewer began her story.
Several neighbors informed the Energy Distribution Operator (ESO) about the life-threatening situation the same morning – they registered the fault on the fault map.
“We also tried to call them on the phone, but due to heavy traffic, we could not reach them. A few hours later, we called the general emergency number and reported a tree that had fallen and blocked the road, as well as downed wires. The rescuers refused to come to cut the tree and clear the way until ESO fixed the broken wires, because it is not safe to cut a tree when broken wires are entangled in it,” said Silvija about the attempts to find help.
What worried people the most was that there were a bunch of small children living in the neighborhood – after all, just a few seconds would have been enough and the whole story would have been called a tragedy.
It is true that the village is not without four-legged victims – as Silvija herself said, the main village leader liked to sleep in one of the bushes where the electricity cables fell toy cars and a much-loved community cat. Residents found the body of an electrocuted animal in the same bushes after the storm had subsided.
Without waiting for an even bigger tragedy, the neighbors took the initiative themselves.
“Since ESO could not be contacted and the town hall, on the same Monday, at around 9 p.m., several neighbors decided to be immortal and provided themselves with shoes and clothing, cut a tree and raised several wires so that we could safely leave the house and go to work.” said the woman.
They kept trying to fix the faults remotely
The first hope that help was on the way was sparked shortly after brave neighbors took it upon themselves to improve the situation. True, hope was quickly replaced by disappointment.
“We received a message from the ESO that the power supply failure has been eliminated, although we were sitting by the candles, and looking out the window, we could clearly see the hanging and rolling broken power cables. We urgently registered an additional failure again, indicating that nothing has been fixed yet and the situation has not changed,” Silvija continued.
The Irish waited for a couple of days with patience.
“On Wednesday, we saw that our fault has disappeared from the fault map and we have officially been restored with electricity. We called ESO again and heard that they were unaware of the failure and were logging it. The employees seemed very surprised that no one registered the failure. We were also surprised, but we were told that due to the heavy load, the information on the map may be delayed,” the interviewer continued.
As the woman said, although the explanation turned out to be strange, the neighbors did not make a big scene – everything happens with those systems, they registered the failure again and waited patiently.
On Thursday, the situation started to get worse: ESO again announced that the problem was supposedly solved.
“The ESO operators keep repeating that there was no malfunction, and they registered it again. The same information that they are hearing about the situation for the first time was repeated to three neighbors by 3 different operators. The fault has been re-registered again.
On Friday, the situation repeats itself! It turns out that ESO has mastered remote troubleshooting. There are a lot of questions about why everything is happening like this, whether they want to hide inefficient work so that it is not visible how many consumers do not have electricity, or whether these are some serious problems of misalignment between ESO’s communication and internal processes,” Silvija pondered.
Almost a week of stomping on the spot seems to have ended on Saturday, with news from the Irish that the fault is finally visible. The ESO car that appeared in the settlement on Sunday gave even more hope.
“On Sunday morning, for the first time after the power cut, an ESO car appeared on our street. It took exactly 3 minutes. They looked at our wire garland, but only halfway down the street, the employees got out for a while, turned around and left. They hadn’t even reached the end of the street.
He left and did not return either alone or with reinforcements. And on the fault map, our fault is not visible again. Just recently, the neighbor reported that the workers arrived today, Monday. Exactly 7 days after we live not only without electricity, but also with life-threatening wires on the side,” Silvija continued her absurd story.
Trying to explain why the Irish found themselves in such a miserable situation, Silvia considered that an error in the ESO fault map itself could have contributed to it.
“I and II Airėnai villages are confused on the map, marked in the wrong places. Maybe it can have an impact,” Silvija, who has been living without electricity for a week, thought rhetorically.
I managed to get the generator
When Silvija was asked how people live in the last week, she didn’t mince words: certainly not like in the 21st century.
“Fortunately, three of the 8 neighbors have generators. We bought them already after the storm: since this item was especially popular at the time, we managed to get what we managed, the generators are not really powerful. We supply a freezer, a refrigerator and several light bulbs with the energy produced. Everything in our house is powered by electricity. Fortunately, we have a well and draw water from there. In our country, we have a so-called summer kitchen, where we use gas to cook,” said Silvija.
Other neighbors produce gas, and also draw water from wells. People go to those who have electricity to charge their phones.
As Silvija herself later informed the portal, on Monday evening, more than 7 days after the disappearance, electricity was restored in the settlement.
There are still hundreds without electricity
Commenting on the situation for the portal lrytas.ltESO public relations representative Rasa Juodkienė stated that she is aware of the situation in the village of Airėnai I.
“According to our data, Kernavės kel. the electricity supply to the residents has already been restored and a team of contractors continues to work at this location to remove the violations for all residents by 5 p.m. And 60 brigades are currently working in the entire Vilnius region, to which an additional 13 brigades are joining, so that the electricity supply will be restored in the remaining places as soon as possible”, said R. Juodkienė.
She added – although when the wires are broken, the voltage in them is usually disconnected, but the residents are advised not to go near such wires at least 8 meters, and, ironically, to report to the ESO number 1852, they will eliminate the malfunction.
“Unlike previous storms, when most of the fuses were blown, this natural disaster caused massive tree and branch breakages that cut power lines. We are aware of all the cases where the wires were interrupted, and we try to eliminate the violations as soon as possible. From the first moments until now, teams of ESO employees and contractors have been working and repairing the damage: removing fallen trees, restoring overturned supports, connecting cables,” the ESO spokeswoman continued.
Lrytui.lt the sent comment also indicates that about 900 consumers still do not have electricity in full or in part: 400 consumers are still living without electricity, 300 consumers are receiving low-quality electricity supply after the storm (one phase is missing), as well as another 200 consumers with whom ESO could not be contacted.
“These residents do not have a smart metering device installed, so we have to check whether the supply has been restored and whether it is of good quality,” said R. Juodkienė.
Losses already amount to 4.23 million euros
The biggest storm of this year that broke a week ago is the second largest in the history of “Lietuvos drimadu”, according to the press release sent by the company.
It is estimated that more than 6,000 damages were registered during the week.
Mainly strong winds broke trees that damaged residents’ cars and items left outside, and there were also many reports of damage to buildings caused by extremely heavy rainfall.
“The summer season is characterized by an abundance of extreme natural phenomena and changeable weather. As we notice, nature becomes more and more merciless every year, so there can only be more such record-breaking storms in the future: last year, the storm that passed through central and northern Lithuania at the beginning of August caused losses of 9.5 million to our company’s home insurance clients alone. EUR 4.23 million, and the storm that affected the whole of Lithuania a week ago already caused losses of EUR 4.23 million. euros, and it seems that this is not the end yet”, Mantas Norkus, head of the Customer Service Center of “Lietuvos dramudi” stated in a press release.
2024-08-06 07:08:36