After hitting Sweden hard during the night, Storm Johannes calmed down in the early morning hours. But Sweden woke up to widespread devastation in large parts of the country and the storm's effects are still being felt.
On Sunday evening, just over 16,000 customers in the worst storm-hit areas were still without power.
"I spoke a little while ago with our operations manager. We have both been involved for a long time and we think that this is the worst storm we have been hit by, at Ellevio at least, since Gudrun in 2005 and Per in 2007," Jonatan Björck, press communicator at Ellevio, told TT earlier in the day.
Ellevio has the most outages among its customers in Gävleborg. At 10 p.m., work to restore power for the night was interrupted. At that time, just over 9,300 customers in the county were without power.
"We are doing this so that our staff can work safely and get the rest they need to continue working early tomorrow," the company writes on its website.
Hard to predict
Even Eon, which has the most outages in Västernorrland, has several thousand customers without power.
"Some will have to wait until tomorrow (Monday), maybe. Maybe even longer. It's extremely difficult to say," said Lena Berglund, regional manager Norrland at Eon.
Three people are reported to have died during the storm on Saturday. A man in his 50s was hit by a tree in Sandviken and two men in Härnösand and Hofors died while clearing trees.
Thousands of trees fell across the roads during the storm. The Swedish Transport Administration has around 100 crews working to clear the roads. In some places, there are so many trees that forestry machinery is needed to clear them.
"As I understand it, it should be passable in most places within the day. But it may take time to repair game fences and other parts that have been damaged. The road may not be fully restored for another two weeks," said Eva Jonsson, press communicator at the Swedish Transport Administration.
Work to inspect and restore the railway lines that were closed during the storm was also in full swing on Sunday.
Limited capacity
The routes are expected to be open to traffic during the evening. Capacity may be limited on some of them.
Both the Sundsvallsbron and the Högakustenbron have been reopened since they closed during the storm.
The traffic situation on Saturday was so serious that the Swedish Transport Administration, unusually, issued a VMA, an important public message, asking people not to travel.
Despite the recommendations from authorities, there was a lot of traffic on the major roads.
Mikael Forsell/TT
Facts: Closed railway lines reopen
TT
Train traffic was affected on Sunday. The railway routes Borlänge–Mora, Gävle–Vännäs, Gävle–Storvik–Vännäs, the Central Line and the Botnia Line were closed to traffic.
According to the Swedish Transport Administration's preliminary forecast, they should be open to traffic again during the evening. Capacity on some of the routes may be limited.
