Blackout in Western Pomerania: Ten hour power outage on New Year's morning!

Blackout in Western Pomerania: Ten hour power outage on New Year's morning!

On New Year's morning 2026, several communities in the Anklam-Land district (Western Pomerania-Greifswald) experienced an unpleasant start to the new year. The lights went out in the towns of Drewelow, Neuenkirchen, Strippow and Müggenburg and residents had to go without electricity for over ten hours. The cause of this significant power outage was damage to a medium-voltage overhead line caused by stormy gusts. The fault was reported to e.dis Netz GmbH at 9:45 a.m., whereupon immediate measures were taken to isolate the error and repair it, as nordkurier.de reports.

While Müggenburg was able to be supplied with electricity again relatively quickly, the residents of Drewelow, Neuenkirchen and Strippow had to wait until the evening for the electricity to return. The repairs were finally completed at 7:23 p.m. Fortunately, the emergency precautions that Neuenkirchen's fire chief Guido Wegner had taken in the form of a warming room in the community manor house were not necessary. The warming room would have served as a central contact point for the affected citizens and provided warm drinks and places to sleep.

Measures in an emergency

The preparations for a longer power outage were sound. In such an emergency, information would have been communicated to residents via loudspeaker announcements and social media. The idea of ​​providing electricity for urgently needed medical equipment was also part of the emergency plans, but these did not come to fruition due to timely repairs.

Power outages are not only a locally known phenomenon, but can also take on global dimensions. Such interruptions in the electricity supply can occur for a variety of reasons: from atmospheric influences to human error to technical failure in the network. According to a study, over 84% of all supply interruptions in Germany occur in medium-voltage networks, which underlines the reliability of power supply systems. Sometimes it is also external influences such as storms that lead to such incidents, as can be read on wikipedia.de.

Check the power supply

If an outage occurs, those affected must first remain calm and check whether neighbors are still being supplied with electricity. A simple conversation is often enough to quickly find out whether the problem is in your own household or on the internet. Disruptions should then be reported immediately to the relevant networks, such as EWE NETZ GmbH or e.dis Netz GmbH, in order to enable an early solution, as netze-ffo.de notes.

Such power outages are annoying, but also educational. The preparations and measures taken by the affected communities show how important it is to be well prepared for unexpected situations. In this way, citizens can better face the challenges that the new year may bring.