The Latvian enterprise Latvenergo showed an interesting concern about people by calling all residents of Latvia "to prepare for possible power cuts during the hurricane", as NovoNews reports.
"You should stock up batteries, flashlights, candles, and also charge mobile phones, so you can call the electrician", the company’s report says.
In addition, residents were asked not to approach broken wires – they could just call a toll-free telephone and report the damage.
The point is that according to Latvian experts, on the night of Thursday 29 July a big storm had to take place over the territory of the Baltic States and Belarus. Strong rains and thunderstorms with gusty winds up to 25 metres per second and a hailstorm in some areas were expected.
According to experts, the size of hail could exceed 5 centimetres and tornadoes could take place during thunderstorms.
We have something to envy. Seemingly simple concern speaks volumes – the fate of citizens, people who pay for services is not indifferent to such giants as Latvenergo.
And what do Belarusians have?
Yesterday it was informed that because of the squally wind which gusts reached 28 metres per second, 607 localities in Belarus were cut off power, 510 of them (at 3 p.m.) were still without electricity. As the state news agency reported citing the Emergencies Ministry, the storm affected 85 localities in 18 districts of Vitebsk, Gomel, Minsk and Mogilev regions. Roofs of 100 houses, 10 buildings of social and domestic purposes, 5 production and 88 agricultural buildings were damaged.
I wonder whether the people affected by the storm had an opportunity to call relatives and to look after pets, whether they had candles after all?..
...For the sake of interest I checked the web site of our "Belenergo". The latest news message was dated the 19th of July and was dedicated to ... the results of the competition for the title "Best in the Profession": "The judicial commission has summed up the national competitions of the operational maintenance personnel of the distribution networks of "Belenergo" for the title "Best in the Profession" which were held 12—16 July 2010 on the training ground of the branch "Grodno Electrical Networks" of "Grodnoenergo"...
