Snow catastrophe in western Austria: chaos on the streets and power outages!

Snow catastrophe in western Austria: chaos on the streets and power outages!

Dornbirn-Gütle, Österreich - A massive onset of winter caused a devastating impact on traffic in numerous regions of Austria on Saturday. Especially in the west, in Vorarlberg and Tyrol, as well as in Upper and Lower Austria, extensive traffic disabilities and roadblocks occurred due to the productive snowfall. For example, the Vienna Foreign Ring Autobahn (A 21) was closed due to the stuck vehicles, and there was a complete lock between the Steinhäusl and Vösendorf node. Depirtions across alternative roads were set up, but many main connections remained difficult to pass, such as Kleine Zeitung reported.

Snowfall keeps emergency services on Trot

The fire brigades got into a large -scale operation in several federal states, especially in Upper Styria due to fallen trees and street blocks. In Upper Austria, over 790 missions were registered by the afternoon, while the situation on the streets did not seem to relax. The ÖAMTC said that many cars got stuck due to the winter driving conditions, which made the evacuation work significantly more difficult. In addition, the emergency services reported from affected rail connections, which were interrupted by overturned trees on the tracks, which led to delays of up to two hours.

In Vorarlberg, 50 cm of fresh snow fell in the mountains overnight, which caused the avalanche warning level to "large" (level 4). Winter athletes were called up to extreme caution, since spontaneous avalanche dissolutions are possible at any time, as the ÖAMTC warned. The power supply was also severely affected; Around 10,000 households were without electricity in Styria around noon, while around 4,000 households were in dark cold in Carinthia. The country suffered from numerous traffic problems, while the motorway network fell on the streets that was very endangered, as ÖAMTC reported. However, meteorologists expect the weather conditions to be improved for Sunday, even if the temperatures are likely to remain freezing cold.