3. februar 2014

Slovenia encased in ice

Well, that was some weekend!
It all started on Friday when instead of snow we got rain at 0 degrees C. (And by “we” I mean a big part of Slovenia. Later the rain spread over all Slovenia and parts of Italy and Hungary.) Of course, ice started to accumulate on everything and in some parts (luckily not here) trees were breaking under the accumulated weight. Roads were closed, power lines were cut.
On Saturday the water stopped flowing. We live on a hill and we depend on a pumping station which apparently lost power. As we prepared few gallons of drinking water in advance, this was not such a problem. (Except that we had to melt snow so we were able to flush toilets.)
Then, an hour before midnight, electricity went out. Mobile internet was still working so we checked if the civilization still exists and went to bed.
On Sunday morning, electricity was back, and so was water (hurray!). There was, however, no internet, although the TV was working (we get both over the same cable). Mobile data was also not working (voice and SMS were, most of the time). Outside, everything was encased in ice.
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We only had 4 hours of electricity, though, until the noon. The water kept flowing – it looks like somebody has attached a power generator to the pumping station. There continued to be no mobile internet; even voice and SMS communications were mostly interrupted. And so we mostly read books by the candlelight …
On Sunday evening the rain finally changed into a snow (with the temperature still holding around 0 deg. C). We got electricity back during the night and on Monday morning house was again a nice place to live in. Still no internet, though – neither the cable nor the mobile connections were working. On the outside, everything was normal at a first glance but a closer look showed that all trees are still covered in ice and some branches are broken. No big deal, at least all trees are still standing.
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It is now Monday morning, the temperatures are climbing (we’re at +1), we have electricity and water, but still no internet. We consider ourselves lucky as there are some parts of Slovenia which are cut from the world for the third day in row and still don’t have power lines reconnected.
--- update
Monday, 13:18. Both cable and mobile internet are working.
We’d like to thank all great people that are tirelessly working day and night to put civilization back together. Thank you!

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