Snow brings travel chaos
Tuesday December 16, 2008 - Email this article to a friend

The high level of snow across the mountain ranges of Europe has also brought with it some problems.

Roads have been closed, power lines have come down and there have been a number of fatal accidents.

Flights have been affected too with 7cm of snow at Geneva airport and 10cm at Zurich causing some flight delays earlier this week.

The snow brings chaos to the railwayLorries near the Tunnel du Gothard in Switzerland found the road impassable in places and many pulled over to wait on the hard shoulder until the roads were cleared. Hundreds of lorries were stuck for 2 days.

In Eastern Switzerland the avalanche danger meant some railway lines had to be closed.

Some ski resorts, including our base resort of Verbier, have been cut off as the mountain roads have been closed.

In Verbier the snowploughs couldn’t clear the snow fast enough and as soon as they had cleared it then it just built up again.

The snow, though predicted, has caught a few people by surprise.

In Southern Austria one town, Lesachtal, is cut off after 2m of snow fell blocking all the access roads.

3,000 homes are without power after snow brought down power lines and engineers are still working to try to restore the electricity.

A number of schools are also closed.

But is it's not as bad in Europe as in the United States where an ice storm has caused massive disruption and chaos. Up to 1m people are without power after the worst storm for  a decade.

Also spare a thought for these people in the video below who have a job of work to get on with.

Let's hope it doesn't snow again!

If you are travelling out to the mountains this weekend and are lucky enough to own your own chalet then don’t forget one key piece of equipment.

A shovel.

If you own a property like the one on the right you’ll need it.

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