Towards a Baltic Sea Region Strategy in Critical ... - Helsinki.fi

CHAPTER II: ELECTRICITY
these, systems should be distributed in order to avoid single points of failure. In
addition, the use of redundant communication links, such as fibre or satellite, is to
improve the reliability even further.
During the storm, the emergency services did not only experience problems
of a technical nature - some areas also experienced problems with coordination
and organization. On one occasion the fire station was required to house the local
municipality coordination group, which had a negative impact on the fire
department’s own coordination abilities. Basically, all fire departments that had
working command and coordination centres did not experience any management
problems.
An urging need for GIS and Decision Support applications was discovered
during the storm and are currently under development.
Reflections
It is apparent that the consequences of the Gudrun storm in Sweden were far more
serious than those of the Pyry and Janika storms in Finland. Nevertheless, there
are several similarities as well as a few differences that are worth noting.
During Gudrun, the emergency services themselves were more directly
affected by the power blackouts than during Pyry and Janika. The primary reason
for this was simply the fact that the blackouts during Gudrun covered a wider area
and lasted longer. If a storm of the same magnitude hit Finland, the Finnish
authorities would have to deal with the same kinds of problems. This highlights
the importance of independent emergency supplies for the emergency services
organizations. Actions to improve the preparedness inside the organizations
themselves have already been taken, both in Finland and in Sweden.
Both the Finnish and the Swedish authorities suffered from communication
problems. As has been noted earlier, the Finnish TETRA-based radio network
VIRVE – which had recently become operational – failed during the storms. In
Sweden, a similar network named RAKEL is currently being built. Due to the
experiencies from Gudrun, additional resources have been allocated to make the
RAKEL base stations even more robust in order to ensure full operation even
during exceptional circumstances. Although the Finnish VIRVE-network has been
significantly improved since the storms in November 2001, there is no publicly
available information about its robustness and coverage during power blackouts.
The importance of securing vulnerable institutions in society during
exceptional weather circumstances became apparent during both Gudrun and
Pyry/Janika. After only a few hours of blackout, the situation may become serious,
requiring immediate action by the emergency services to save lives. The
distribution of drinking water and the risk of contamination must also be taken
into account during prolonged blackouts.
As has been noted in the case studies, there can never be too much
interoperability and cooperation between the organizations involved, no matter
whether they are rescue service organizations or companies from the private
sector. This does not only apply to exceptional circumstances, it should be a
natural part of the everyday activities.
The rescue services themselves are becoming more and more dependent on
information systems. Decision support and incident follow-up systems are being
developed in both Sweden and Finland. These systems should be designed in such
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