ENERGO-PRO emergency teams were able to restore power to 30,000 families in hundreds of settlements, despite harsh weather conditions and hard-to-reach areas

Today, the specialists of the electricity distribution company restored the electricity supply to almost all settlements affected by the winter elements in the territory of North-East Bulgaria

For the fifth day, the disaster situation remains in force in the municipalities most affected by the snow disaster - Gabrovo and Sevlievo. Heavy snowfall, which lasted more than 24 hours, accompanied in places with hurricane-force winds, caused massive branch breakage. There were many fallen trees, and the height of the snow cover in the distressed areas of Central Northern Bulgaria reached 70 cm. In the Shumen region, there was massive icing on power lines. The damage to the electricity distribution network, as a result of the severe winter situation, was numerous — torn wires on medium-voltage power lines in hard-to-reach mountain areas, broken insulators, icicles and others.

As a result of the natural element on the eve of the disaster, 30,000 customers from nearly 300 settlements in the regions of Gabrovo, Veliko Tarnovo, Shumen, Razgrad, Silistra and Targovishte remained without electricity. All ENERGO-PRO Networks teams in the affected areas were mobilized to eliminate the hundreds of accidents caused by wet snow, icing, strong wind and numerous broken branches and fallen trees. The specialists, equipped with the necessary equipment for working in winter conditions and high-pass equipment to provide faster access to the damage in the crossed terrain, worked hard for days and days. Despite the harsh working conditions and hard-to-reach areas of the power lines, especially in the Elena and Gabrovo Balkans, the teams managed to restore power to nearly 20,000 customers in 137 settlements within 6 hours. Given the extremely difficult situation in the mountainous regions, the ENERGO-PRO Crisis Management Board promptly redirected an additional resource from the less affected areas to the disaster areas in order to speed up the process of restoring people's power supply.

As a result of the severe weather conditions and the complicated situation, numerous secondary accidents occurred on medium voltage power lines in the same and in other settlements in the affected areas. The emergency teams continued to work during the past 24 hours to eliminate the damage and by 18:00 yesterday the power supply of 27,000 customers from more than 200 settlements was restored. The company's specialists on the ground maintain constant contact with local authorities and representatives of “Civil Protection” in order to exchange up-to-date information and coordinate their actions for the prompt elimination of accidents.

During the three days, during which the situation in the disaster areas on the territory of ENERGO-PRO was most complicated, the operators of the company's 24-hour telephone center received more than 23,300 calls from customers of the company.

Today, the power supply of almost all customers from the settlements affected by the winter element has already been restored. 150 customers remain without power in hard-to-reach areas of the municipality of Gabrovo, where the teams continue to work in crossed terrain with drifts reaching a meter in height.