The Pustertal Valley sinks into the snow

After November had started with a lot of rain, all soils were soaked and soggy. When it snowed heavily from 12th to 13th September deep into the valleys, the roots of many trees could no longer withstand the weight of the snow and fell down in rows. This led to catastrophic situations in the entire Pustertal valley: not only the entire traffic came to a standstill due to the many interrupted roads, but also the power supply in the Pustertal area collapsed completely. A 'Black Out' was the result.

The employees on duty at the sewage treatment plants had their hands full to cope with the many incidents and stayed on the plants for days and nights. The large amount of snow alone would not be the problem. The sewage treatment plants are equipped with emergency power plants in case of emergency. However, the emergency power operation is not designed to bridge power outages lasting several days. In emergency operation, not all system components are supplied in order to make do with the remaining reserves for as long as possible.

The Tobl and Welsberg plants were hit particularly hard. They had no electricity for days and were only able to maintain operation to a limited extent. The drying and incineration plant in Tobl failed for several days.