Heavy snowfall paralyzed much of the country last week

Although Poles are used to frigid winters, the copious snowfall that began around New Year's Eve has put an exceptional strain on the country's infrastructure.

The railway system has been hit especially hard. Due to an inordinate amount of ice on railtracks and traction power lines, there have been cancellations and huge delays in railway services all over Poland. The record so far belongs to a Katowice-Gdynia train which arrived more than 17 hours late.

Asked whether they could not have prepared better for the eventuality, Marek Sieczkowski, spokesperson for PKP Energetyka, which is responsible for electricity and traction network service for Polish State Railways (PKP) infrastructure, described the situation as exceptional. "We have not seen this much sleet fall on the traction lines in the last few decades," he told WBJ, adding that delays and cancellations have been commonplace throughout Europe recently.

"The scale of the problem is gigantic. We have engaged all our resources, and our people have been working 24 hours a day," he stated. As proof of this, he cited the fact that PKP Energetyka employees had on one occasion de-iced over 62 km of traction lines in a single night.

A myriad of woes

Poland's national power grid is also feeling the strain. According to the Government Security Center (RCB), around 65,000 households in the Silesia voivodship were without electricity on January 11. Outages were dealt with quickly and the situation improved somewhat over the week - four days later "just" 21,800 households were without power.
Cities across the country have reportedly spent millions to clear their roads. "This season, we have spent zł.60 million so far," said Magda Jadziewicz, a spokesperson for Warsaw City Hall. In addition, several incidents of roofs collapsing under the weight of snow have been reported. Interior Minister Jerzy Miller has instructed Poland's 16 voivodes to ensure that snow is being removed from roofs. Public opinion is especially sensitive to this subject because of a tragic event which occurred in Katowice four years ago, when 60 trade-fair attendees died after a roof collapsed.

Even some parts of the Baltic Sea have started freezing over. As a result, ice-breakers have had to carve a path through the Bay of Szczecin, an important trade route.

Meanwhile, businesses that deal in products to combat the winter are thriving. Shovels, spades and road salt have become hot commodities in Poland.

According to a number of sources, the waiting time for companies to pick up road salt at the Kłodawa Salt Mine, Poland's largest road-salt mine, stretched to around 20 hours last week.

Martyna Olik