Emergency services received record number of calls during storm

Storm aftermath in Narva-Jõesuu.
Storm aftermath in Narva-Jõesuu. Source: Sergei Stepanov

More than 6,000 calls were made to the Emergency Response Center (Häirekeskus) from across the country over the weekend as a storm battered Estonia, a new record.

Janek Murakas, the center's crisis manager, said this is three times more than during previous autumn storms.

"The most difficult day for us was Saturday when we received more than 5,600 calls to 112, an all-time high for us. And in addition to 112, our other number, 1247, also had four times as many calls, receiving over 800 calls on Saturday, compared to the usual 200 calls," he said.

The number was back to normal on Monday.

This weekend's storm, which finally died down on Monday after three days, blew hundreds of trees down and tens of thousands of people were left without power.

Hiiu, Lääne-Viru and Harju counties were the worst hit.

Tuuli Jõesaar, from Harju County, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" her household and the surrounding area lost electricity for 43 hours.

The family used candles to light their home and cooked on a camping stove over the weekend, she said. But the problems did not end when the lights came back on.

"The children could not be taken to nursery school [on Monday] because it was also cold and dark. Which meant that I had to take a day off, which also indirectly affects the company where I work," said Jõesaar.

Mihkel Härm, chairman of Elektrilevi's board, said several schools and kindergartens experienced blackouts but these should be fixed by Tuesday.

All other buildings should have their electricity restored by Friday at the latest.

Between 5,000-6,000 households are still without power on Monday night, many of them in north Estonia.

"Harju County was the county where the storm winds were the strongest. Here, the winds were over 30-meter-per-second, and there are just a lot of broken trees and a lot of outages because of that," Härm said.

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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Helen Wright

Source: Aktuaalne kaamera

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