As of: November 30, 2023 7:16 p.m
In Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen there are now restrictions on winter service due to warning strikes by road maintenance departments. It is still slippery in many places. But there was no major chaos – probably also because drivers adapted to the weather conditions.
On Thursday night there were double-digit temperatures in the north in some areas, and it remained largely frosty during the day. The streets are partly slippery, like in Hamburg early in the morning. But that didn’t have much of an impact on the traffic situation, as NDR 90.3 reported. However, caution is still advised, particularly on secondary roads and bridges. The city cleaning winter service is still in operation – there was no strike in this area in Hamburg.
Yesterday evening, a Eurowings plane left the runway at Hamburg Airport due to black ice after landing. The machine slipped while parking. All 89 passengers and the crew were able to leave normally via the stairs and were taken to the terminal by bus. No one was injured, an airport spokeswoman said.
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Clearance services are on strike in Lower Saxony and Bremen
Due to the collective bargaining conflict in the public sector in the federal states, there will be restrictions on winter service in Lower Saxony and Bremen until Friday morning at 6 a.m. The ver.di union had called on road maintenance employees to go on strike. In Lower Saxony, the warning strike mainly affects federal, state and, in some cases, district roads. A ver.di spokesman said that anyone traveling on smaller roads in particular may have to be prepared for the fact that the roads are still slippery and not gritted. Cities and municipalities are therefore not affected; winter service continues as normal here.
Police spokespersons in various regions of Lower Saxony also confirmed that the traffic situation remained relatively relaxed at night and early in the morning despite the strike. This is mainly because it has remained largely dry in many parts of the country. Two bridges, the Jann-Berghaus Bridge in Leer and the Hunte Bridge near Oldenburg, were closed as a result of the warning strike. Traffic jams formed there in the morning. Snowfall and slippery roads led to a number of accidents in Lower Saxony on Wednesday.
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Only limited winter service in SH too
In Schleswig-Holstein, employees of the road maintenance departments of the State Office for Road Construction and Transport (LBV.SH) were also called to strike. Around 600 strikers gathered in Husum, including employees of the State Office for Coastal Protection, National Park and Marine Protection. However, there was no traffic chaos and the police reported few problems. Drivers have now adapted to the weather conditions. Unlike on Wednesday, there were no major snowfalls in the country overnight or this morning.
According to LBV boss Frank Quirmbach, the loss of the striking employees should be compensated for as best as possible by external companies. The 22 road maintenance departments should also support each other and work across districts. This concerns the particularly busy federal and state roads. Not all of the branch routes could be cleared in the usual time and quality, said Quirmbach.
If parents in SH do not want their children to go to school for safety reasons, they can keep their children at home or bring them home earlier. This also applies if buses are not running due to weather.
Due to the weather, there are no state-level football games in SH and Hamburg
There will be no state-level football games in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg from Friday to Sunday. “The snowfall of the past few days and in particular the extreme temperatures prevent games from playing across Schleswig-Holstein almost without exception,” said the Schleswig-Holstein Football Association (SHFV) on Thursday. The general cancellation applies to all leagues (district class C to upper league) and all age groups (men’s, women’s and youth areas) in SH. The Hamburg Football Association (HFV) also canceled all games (point, cup and friendly games) in consultation with the district offices, cities and municipalities.
SH: Relatively few new weather-related accidents
After the onset of winter, the situation on the streets in Schleswig-Holstein returned to normal on Thursday. There were only a few new accidents due to weather. For example, a total of eight cars collided on the A7 near Bordesholm (Rendsburg-Eckernförde district) on Thursday morning and two people were slightly injured. The road in the direction of Hamburg was temporarily closed. A car overturned on the B206 in Bad Segeberg and one person was taken to hospital, according to the rescue control center. On Thursday night, six people were injured, four of them seriously, in an accident on federal highway 501 near Grömitz. In a few other slippery accidents there was damage to the sheet metal. On Wednesday there were more than 150 accidents on snowy roads in SH.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Accident with a clearing vehicle
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there were also fewer icy accidents than the day before. For the western part of the state, the Rostock police headquarters counted 20 weather-related accidents from midnight to mid-morning. Around 20 accidents were also reported in the eastern part of the country. Two men were injured in an accident involving a snow clearing vehicle near Anklam on Wednesday evening on a snowy road. According to the police, a man hit the sliding sign of the oncoming clearing vehicle with his car and then spun around. He collided with a transporter that was driving behind the clearing vehicle. The person who caused the accident and the driver of the van were injured. On Wednesday there were around 100 weather-related accidents in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Meteorologists expect more snow in the coming days
Snow showers are possible again locally in the north during the night. Temperatures drop to around zero degrees Celsius on the coasts and up to minus eleven degrees in the interior and in the Upper Harz, although in some cases it can get even colder. On Friday the maximum temperature values on the coasts are between one and five degrees Celsius, otherwise temperatures in northern Germany only reach minus four to zero degrees. Snow showers are expected to continue into the weekend, but some sunshine is possible at times. “The winter continues,” said a DWD meteorologist. “It’s not going away any time soon.” You have to expect slippery roads in the north over the weekend.
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