Hundreds of households may not get power back until Saturday after storm damage

Grid operator Sadales tīkls reported that by 7 p.m. on Friday, August 28, power had been restored to most customers affected by last week's storm, with 2,640 faults fixed so far. However, about 1,700 customers are still without electricity, and full restoration may not be completed until Saturday.

Damage worse than expected

The company said the scale and complexity of the damage exceeded initial forecasts. Large trees fell across power lines over long stretches, in some places snapping wires and breaking poles. In certain areas, crews first have to clear fallen trees and branches from line corridors before repairs can even begin.

While early repairs targeted major lines that restored power to hundreds or thousands of customers at once, crews are now working on small sections of the network where each fixed fault benefits only one or two households. The company noted that if a customer is notified their power has been restored but electricity still doesn't appear, the issue likely lies in the low-voltage network reaching the home directly — in such cases, residents are asked to file a new report.

More than 200 Sadales tīkls crews are working on storm recovery, with most concentrated in the harder-hit Aizkraukle and Jēkabpils municipalities. A similar situation persists in neighboring Lithuania, where roughly 27,000 of the original 256,000 affected households still lack power.

Safety warnings issued

Sadales tīkls urged the public to stay away from damaged power infrastructure, including downed or low-hanging wires and lines entangled with fallen trees or branches, warning that they may still be live and life-threatening. Parents were asked to keep children and pets away from such hazards, maintain a distance of at least 8-10 meters, cordon off dangerous areas, and call 112 immediately if a hazard is spotted.

Residents can track outages via the digital outage map at www.sadalestikls.lv and report new faults there with photos, or call the free 24-hour hotline 8404, or 112 for urgent hazards. The storm struck Latvia on August 22 under a red weather warning, leaving about 277,000 customers without power the following morning.