Flood – the worse event in Prague’s energy industry history (Portal of Prague)

When on 13th August the water level of Vltava river started quickly rising, nobody suspected what kind of damage this will cause. Gradually this was growing into incredible proportions – 524 transformer stations were put out of service, about eight thousand buildings were without electricity as were 70 thousand flats and other supply places. Water also destroyed more then 500 kilometres of distribution cables. Damage was estimated to 558 million of crowns.

When it was already apparent that Prague was dealing with unprecedented flooding, PRE (Prague Energy Utility Company) had to announce the state of emergency which was valid for the whole Prague and Roztoky town until 14 ^th August. A race against time started. Power engineering specialists gradually managed to restore the power-distribution network and in Roztoky the state of emergency was called off by 26 ^th August. In Prague it was on 16 ^th September 2002, which was 14 days later than it had been originally expected. All this was achieved thanks to people who put hundreds of hours into transformer stations and distribution cable’s restoration.

The impossible was achieved, e.g. within two days PRE’s employees managed to create an information system which was monitoring state of repaired transformer stations. Work was going on almost without any break. Information centre NOE was very helpful. Its task was to keep customers and the State administration informed. People could write to email address bezproudu@pre.cz where they were given up-to-date information about advancements. In places where electricity was restored the city woke up to life again. Crisis Staff finished with their activities in the middle of September 2002, however, it didn’t mean that all was in good order. Some parts of the city were supplied by energy only thanks to provisional solutions. Employees of PRE were also helping its customers and bulk purchasers, to clean and resurrect their transformer stations. At the beginning of the damage liquidation 450 people were taking turns and work was going on 24 hours a day.

In the end floods influenced development of PRE for further five years. Investments in network renovation and other works were increased in order to achieve better reliability of the power distribution network.