Child hit on the head

Storm brought down trees and cut power lines

Operations were mainly due to fallen trees.

(Bild: FF Kalvarienberg/Brückl)

While you could still walk around in a T-shirt on Saturday afternoon, you had to put on your winter coat again towards the evening. According to the regional alarm and warning center LAWZ, the drop in temperature and gusts of wind caused 70 firefighting operations in Carinthia. 900 households were without power. In Hermagor, an ash tree fell on a nine-year-old girl.

The sirens were already wailing in the late afternoon in Klagenfurt's Schleppe Kurve. The Kalvarienberg fire department had to be called out. A tree had blocked the Glan cycle path. The problem was quickly resolved. And a surfer got into distress on Lake Wörthersee. The Krumpendorf water rescue team was able to rescue the man with the lifeboat.

The cycle path was quickly cleared.

(Bild: FF Kalvarienberg)

Roof parts hurled onto the road
Fallen trees were the main challenge for the firefighters. On Saturday evening, gusts of wind then loosened parts of the roof of a building in Fürnitz and flung them onto the main road. "We were able to remove more loose sheet metal parts from the roof and return to the fire station after around an hour," said the Fürnitz volunteer fire department.

The Fürnitz fire department had to recover roof parts.

(Bild: FF Fürnitz)

A fallen tree blocked an access road in Keutschach. Comrades from the Keutschach fire department were able to quickly remove the tree with a forestry crane. The Brückl fire department also had to be called out to the Diexer Landesstraße due to fallen trees. Several trees had fallen in the area of a housing estate.

The Brückl fire department was called out to the Diexer Landesstraße.

(Bild: FF Brückl)

The storm had snapped several trees.

(Bild: FF Brückl)

The tree was quickly removed with the forestry crane.

(Bild: FF Keutschach)

Driving car hit by tree
The districts of Völkermarkt and Wolfsberg were also badly affected. The Frantschach-St. Gertraud fire department had to be called out twice. Trees had blocked the road, and a driver luckily escaped with a scare when her car was hit and damaged by a tree while she was driving. And in the second operation, a trampoline that had been blown into the Lavant by strong winds had to be recovered.

Fortunately, the driver was not injured.

(Bild: Georg Bachhiesl)

The Frantschach-St. Gertraud fire brigade had to be called out twice.

(Bild: Georg Bachhiesl)

The weather started to change in the late afternoon.

(Bild: FF Frantschach-St. Gertraud)

Ash tree fell on girl
The storm also had tragic consequences on Sunday in the district of Hermagor: a family on vacation from Germany was walking along a hiking trail south of the village of Tröpolach at midday when an ash tree with a trunk seven centimetres in diameter suddenly fell over near the church of St. Leonhard-Schlanitzen. The nine-year-old daughter was hit on the head by the tree, injured and carried back to Tröpolach by her father (45). There, emergency services took over the dazed child and transported her to hospital in Villach.

500 firefighters on storm duty
"All Carinthian districts were affected. The focus was on the districts of Feldkirchen, St. Veit an der Glan, Völkermarkt and Wolfsberg. In some areas there were gusts of wind of around 60 km/h. In total, 56 fire departments with around 500 firefighters were deployed to more than 70 storms and storm operations," reports Chief Fire Inspector Hans-Jörg Rossbacher from the Carinthia Fire Department. According to "Kärnten Netz", around 900 households - mainly in the Lavant Valley - were without power at around 6.30 pm. Trees had fallen on power lines here too.