Elektroenergetyczna infrastruktura krytyczna w województwie zachodniopomorskim – 10 lat po blackoucie

Electricity grids failures, caused by the natural forces, occur often locally and can be handled by the grid’s operator services. If, however, a large number of elements are damaged over a vast area, a large territory is devoid of power supply. It is then necessary to use external aid and undertake a crisis management operation (i.a. to set up a crisis team, secure humanitarian aid, establish emergency restoration task forces, and develop logistic facilities, including the reserve power supply lines). Such an electricity grid failure afflicted also Poland. On the night from 7 to 8 of April 2008 strong winds arrived and heavy wet snow was deposited on the electric power lines, exceeding several dozen times their assumed catastrophe endurance norms. As a result, over 650 thousand inhabitants of the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship were cut off from the power supply for almost 24 hours in Szczecin, and for more than 32 hours in the smaller localities. After a decade since the so called ‘blackout’, a question arrives whether Szczecin and its vicinity are at risk of return of the system failure? In this article an attempt was made to answer this question that bothers the region’s inhabitants.