Most households get power back by Sunday evening after autumn storm

High winds hampered Viking and Silja ferries

print this

The bulk of those households in Southwestern Finland that were blacked out by a sharp autumn storm at the weekend were reconnected to the electricity grid by Sunday evening.
      According to energy company Fortum, after 22:00 on Sunday night only around 2,000 households were still without power.
      At its worst, something like 9,500 homes in southern and western Finland and in Ostrobothnia had been affected.
      It was estimated that those still without power would be reconnected overnight, and would be back on the grid by Monday morning.
     
The worst-hit districts were Raisio, Uusikaupunki, Somero, and Rymättylä, while a good many homes also went dark in the archipelago off the south and west coast.
      Fortum had prepared itself for the anticipated damage by calling in power-line staff on Sunday.
     
The gale-force winds that blew in from the west also caused problems for mariners on Sunday.
      The Viking Line car & passenger ferry Rosella had to wait approximately six hours for the weather to improve before docking in Kapellskär in Sweden.
      The Silja Europa, en route from Stockholm to Turku, was forced to cancel her stop-and-go call in Mariehamn in the Åland Islands because of the strong winds.
      In the outer islands, for example at Utö, the winds reached 25 metres a second in the evening, and the Finnish Meterological Office estimated that there were gusts of up to 31m/s (roughly 110km/h).
     
The wind also brought down part of the scaffolding around a six-storey apartment block in Helsinki's Töölö district late on Sunday evening.
      Nobody was injured as the scaffolding collapsed, but the incident is likely to lead to an investigation by police and occupational safety officials.
      The high winds are now abating, and the Meteorological Institute forecasts that things should be down to a breezy 10-15 metres a second by midday today.


Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute

Helsingin Sanomat