Thousands of Gotlanders woke up to a power-less home on Saturday morning. Temperatures around zero and large amounts of snow hit the power grid, said Mikael Hanell, disturbance manager at Geab, Gotland's Energy, to TT during the night.
There is a lot of heavy wet snow. Trees and branches and high-voltage lines have been loaded with snow.
Revised prognosis
At most, over 5,000 customers on Gotland were without power, a figure that had dropped to just under 400 by late Saturday evening.
Initially, the goal was for everyone to have their power back by 21:00 on Saturday, but it was later adjusted to midnight. And by 21:00, the prognosis had been updated to say that "most" customers would have their power back by midnight. On Geab's website, it states that some subscribers are expected to get their power back between 01:00 and 04:00 on Sunday morning.
Something that has complicated the work is that they have discovered heavy ice coating on many lines.
This makes the lines become heavily loaded and hang quite low. We urge those who see this to contact us, said Andreas Allestad, duty officer at Geab, to TT at 15:30.
One should not go near these lines.
The weather has also caused Destination Gotland to cancel several departures to and from the island on Saturday.
Harsh weather on Öland
SMHI has also issued an orange warning that snowfall and strong winds can cause problems on the northern parts of Öland. Ölandsbladet reported on five power outages in Borgholm municipality. Around 450 subscribers were without power early in the morning, and by Saturday evening, it was under 120. According to a prognosis by Eon, most are expected to have their power back by Sunday morning.
In Västervik municipality, power outages have also been reported, and at 22:30, over 150 subscribers were still without power. There, too, the power is expected to be back on by Sunday morning.
Östergötland has also received heavy snowfall and strong winds. On the E4 near Linköping, a series of traffic accidents occurred during Saturday morning. At 15:20, a single-vehicle accident occurred on the E22 in a southerly direction near Gusum, reported Norrköpings Tidningar, which meant that traffic had to be diverted for about an hour.
"The police urge everyone who goes out in traffic to be extra careful on the roads today," writes the police in region Öst on their website.
