2023-12-23 08:46:37
Storm “Zoltan” also called for emergency services from Tyrol to Lower Austria on Saturday night. In the country under the Enns, helpers were deployed 130 times, said Franz Resperger from the Lower Austrian Fire Department Command. In Upper Austria there were 2,500 firefighters on 200 missions, in Salzburg 1,400 on 240 missions. Numerous roadblocks and mudslides were recorded in Tyrol.
Trees that were uprooted or had fallen on power and telephone lines had to be removed in Lower Austria, with the focus being on the southwest of the state. There was no all-clear. There was, however, a great danger of avalanches on the mountains.
Resperger reported dangerous situations for the helpers. In some cases, trees in the immediate vicinity of the site had crashed to the ground during the cutting work. The storm was accompanied by heavy rainfall in many regions.
A train collided with a tree in the Mostviertel on Saturday morning. The Waidhofen ad Ybbs fire department was alerted and removed the obstacle. One person was escorted from the rail vehicle but was uninjured. “The local railway had to be closed, the tracks are damaged,” said the Amstetten district fire brigade command in a release.
According to Resperger, a dangerous situation also arose in Waidhofen ad Thaya in the Waldviertel. A large tree crashed onto the B36. Two drivers were unable to brake in time and drove their cars under the tree. The vehicles were slightly damaged, but the drivers were uninjured. In general, there were no reports of injuries from Saturday night.
In general, the situation remained tense. “The all-clear cannot be given today,” emphasized Resperger. For the helpers in Lower Austria, the busy days before Christmas continued. Around 230 people were deployed from Thursday evening to Friday followingnoon. There was also one fatality in the state on Friday night. A tree fell in Klosterneuburg (Tulln district) and took down a high stand on which a hunter was standing. Any help came too late for the 81-year-old.
The danger of avalanches remained an issue. In the Türnitz and Ybbstal Alps, in the Gippel-Göller area and in the Rax-Schneeberg group, the risk above the tree line was classified as high (level 4 of 5). Below this – just like in the Semmering interchange area above the tree line – level 3 applied, i.e. there was a considerable risk of avalanches. “Due to the amount of fresh snow, spontaneous loose snow avalanches from steep rocky and crag terrain are still likely,” said the warning service. It is likely to get warmer quickly on Sunday, which might lead to spontaneous discharge of snow slabs at high altitudes, among other things.
The hurricane gusts reached around 100 km/h in the populated area, in Abtenau (Tennengau) 102 km/h were measured, and at Salzburg Airport it was 97, as a meteorology report from Geosphere Austria described.
In Salzburg, the north of the country was most affected, i.e. the state capital (with 18 missions), the Flachgau, where 450 helpers were called to over 70 missions, and the Tennengau, where 315 firefighters were deployed to deal with 80 different storm damages. The majority of the operations involved fallen trees, and vehicles also had to be rescued several times and objects had to be pumped out in a few cases. Mudflows also occurred in Bischofshofen and St. Johann im Pongau.
In Upper Austria, the storm operations were spread across the entire state; there was an accumulation of damage in the foothills of the Alps and in the northern Mühlviertel. The storm picked up speed, especially from midnight onwards, reaching the forecast 80 to 100 km/h, and fire brigade operations increased. Here too, fallen trees had to be removed, traffic routes cleared and covered roofs sealed. In Schildorn (Ried district), an agricultural property was on fire, which was fought by eight fire departments. Due to the heavy rain, some cellars also had to be pumped out. In total, around 2,500 helpers from 180 fire departments were deployed at 200 locations.
Some small Tyrolean towns were not accessible on Saturday morning, such as the winter sports resort of Obergurgl in the back of the Ötztal as well as Kaisers, Bschlabs or Gramais (Reutte district). In the Alpbachtal (Kufstein district), a mudflow hit a car, causing the driver to be slightly injured. Around 60 missions were completed during the night, according to the control center.
The storm damage occurred “distributed across the entire country” and resulted in “uprooted trees and blocked roads,” according to information from the Tyrolean operations center to the APA. On Friday evening, the Alpbacher Landesstraße (L5) in Reith was relocated over a length of 15 meters. A car was pushed off the road by the mudflow and pressed once morest a tree. The 25-year-old Hungarian driver was slightly injured, his 21-year-old passenger was uninjured. In Mötz (Imst district), a residential building had to be evacuated following a mudslide spilled onto the terrace of a residential building. In Wenns, too, a road was washed out following a landslide. Four residential buildings in Mils near Imst were evacuated on Saturday night due to a rockfall. A boulder measuring four by four meters crashed through a shed and knocked down a power pole. Nobody was injured.
Due to the weather situation, some higher roads were closed due to the risk of avalanches. According to the traffic police, this also applied to the Obergurgl winter sports resort in the Ötztal. The closure had been in place since late Friday followingnoon. On the border with Switzerland near Pfuns, the B184 was also closed due to an avalanche, and the Pitztal was also still difficult to reach following a mudslide between Jerzens and Arzl. A diversion has been set up. In the Reutte district, the L267 between Gramais and Häselgehr and the L268 between Kaisers and Steeg were closed due to the risk of avalanches. The Bschlaber state road was also not passable in sections.
However, there were no disruptions in train traffic on Saturday morning. According to ÖBB route information, there was no storm damage in Tyrol.
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