After hitting Sweden hard during the night, Storm Johannes calmed down in the early morning hours. But Sweden is waking up to great devastation in large parts of the country and the storm's progress is still being felt.
Countless trees remain across roadways, train traffic along the Northern Main Line is suspended, and tens of thousands of households are still without power.
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.
Worst since Per
"I spoke to our operations manager a little while ago. We have both been involved for a long time and we think this is the worst storm we have been hit by, at least at Ellevio, since Gudrun and Per in 2005 and 2007," says Jonatan Björck.
At least 40,000 subscribers in the worst storm-hit areas were still without power on Sunday morning.
We will have to work all Sunday and our guess right now is that there will be customers without power until Monday as well, unfortunately.
“Wait until tomorrow”
Ellevio has the most outages among its customers in Gävleborg, while the company Eon has the most outages in Västernorrland.
Many have had their power restored and many will have it restored during the day. And some will have to wait until tomorrow perhaps. Maybe even longer. It is extremely difficult to say, says Lena Berglund, Regional Manager, Norrland, at Eon.
Traffic is still affected by strong winds and large numbers of trees, but also power lines, which remain on the roads in the storm-affected areas.
It is still a tense situation, with a lot to do. Our focus is on clearing up now, says the Swedish Transport Administration's press communicator Elin Sarfati.
The traffic situation on Saturday was so serious that the Swedish Transport Administration, for the sake of rarity, issued a VMA, an important message to the public.
It was such a serious situation with danger for people who were outside. We needed to use such a powerful tool to really reach as many people as possible and get people not to go out, says Elin Sarfati.
Despite the recommendations from authorities, there was a lot of traffic on the major roads.
It was the E4 that was affected by many fallen trees and at that time there was also a lot of traffic on the roads which meant that many people were stopped. There was a risk that the trees would fall on stationary cars or cars while they were moving.
Mikael Forsell/TT
Facts: Continued traffic disruptions
TT
Train traffic will be affected during the day. Among other things, the important railway section between Gävle and Vännäs is closed until 12 noon today. This means that trains from Stockholm and north towards Sundsvall and Luleå will not run until after lunch.
The railway section between Borlänge and Mora, as well as the Mittbanan and Botniabanan lines, is also closed. The Sundsvallsbron and Högakustenbron bridges are also closed until further notice due to strong winds.
