After talking to friends in Lloret again this afternoon it seems that the town is almost at a standstill.
Thousands of homes are without power, many cars have had to be abandoned as many roads are impassable owing to the heavy snowfall. Some roads were passable only in 4x4 vehicles.
All schools in the Girona region will closed this afternoon and tomorrow.
A statement on the Ryanair website says that Girona airport is closed until further notice.
Heavy snow has also affected the main streets in the city of Barcelona, snow ploughs are out trying to keep them clear.
13 comments:
Big deal its been bad all over europe this year. Lloret is in the north of spain and often has bad winters.
Lloret is in North East Spain, and as you say has bad winters.
The Girona region often has snow, but I live on the coast in Lloret and have never known it as bad as it is now. I have never been without electric, or known so much disruption because of the weather!
Got to agree with you there Jackie, Every-one i have been in contact with who has lived there 25-35 years have said the same,they can't remember it ever being so bad and causing such disruption!!
hiya jackie we check your webcam everyday and the last two days its not been working do u know wen it will be back on ?
me and my friend are goin to lloret on 21st march and are dreading it now due to the weather have you any idea if it will be any better roundabout then write back Danielle ?? x
Hi Danielle
Owing to the bad weather many homes are without power, so that is the most likely reason the camera isnt working.
Thankfully I'm not in Lloret just now but further south where the sun is shining!
I should think by the time your holiday comes round (and by the time I get back) the bad weather should be over.
Hi Jackie, just managed to get in touch with Albie, phones have been down too, they are saying the power is expected to be down for the next 48 hours, the airport and roads are still out of use, hope they've got enough beer supplies in!!
Oh no Carol !!
That sounds bad....glad we're not there.
The forecast for Benalmadena where we are was for rain and storms today but they were wrong. We have been sat in the sun all day! It doesnt seem like we are all in the same country.
Give Albie our best wishes next time you speak to him, tell him Steve is jealous!
Hope you get him back soon. xx
The snowfall only actually lasted about 12 hours, the following day was warm and sunny. The problem is it fell very heavily, and bought down a pylon that carried the cables bringing power to Lloret, Tossa and many other Costa Brava towns. When that pylon came down the strain on the cables was incredible so it had a knock-on effect bringing neighbouring pylons down too. In total around 20 pylons crashed I believe, hence getting the power back on is a huge job.
So the problem was maybe more the lack of infrastructure in these parts the town hall have been happy to throw apartment blocks, urbanisations and the like up for years getting paid fortunes by developers and tax payers who live in them, but there was never really any infrastructure to back it up, so one heavy snow fall that of course was not expected (however I do remember a similar fall in 1986 thereabouts) was enough to bring the whole area to a grinding halt!
Ditto the electricity company, who are happy to get paid every month, but obviously weren't so happy to pay to keep their ancient structure up to date.
I am no expert, but it seeems very bad policy that all power to the towns ran on only one line of cables - I would of expected that an area with a fair sized population such as the Costa Brava would have several circuits, but it seems they only bothered to put one up.
The snow storm was bad, but no worse than other European countries have had this winter - in the UK it went on for weeks, here it was around 14 hours I guess.
Well let's hope the town halls and service providers take note, extreme weather conditions are becoming the norm all over the world, and a bit of preparation would be grand! But I fear funds will continue being spent on other things that serve small groups of the community rather than the population in general. (Just my opinion!)
Thanks very much for your comment Debbie, I just can't begin to imagine how everyone is managing with no power.
I spoke to Angie yesterday and she said that even the 3rd world countries cope better than Catalunia just now!
How are you and Christian coping?
Take care....
Hi Jackie, Hope you are having fun down there!
We are actually OK, because we don't have grid electricity anyway, we have solar power with a back up generator for winter, and everything else is gas, so we just missed the internet and of course were snowed in for a day and had to walk a fair way! But we had TV, hot water, and heating as normal.
So I think we were lucky, but it seems just about all of Lloret will have electricity back today, so I guess we must just be patient - Endesa (electricity company says all should be normal by Sunday...
Yes, I thought I could remember Christian saying that you had solar panels. I just was'nt sure if you needed so such mains electric as well.
You were just some of the lucky ones then...its nice to get a bit of good news for a change.
I should think that if power is restored today that it would be only temporary lines for now ?
It seem all the power in the town at present is coming from generators, but I did hear part of the line has been restored, but as yet is not supplying Lloret.
However, the generators keep going out, because it seems it has not been agreed who should be putting diesal in them- Endesa say it should be the town hall, and they of course say it should be endesa- meanwhile people are sitting in the darkness again:(
THANKS FOR THE UPDATE DEBBIE.
Total Madness....They are messing with peoples lives, they obviously dont realise!
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