Municipalities still have no clear evacuation plans?

Where and how to drive, if you had to evacuate from the city, Vilnius has only prepared it now.

« We had officially and formally a plan so far, but it was obviously more theoretical, » said Valdas Benkunskas, Mayor of Vilnius.

« The mayor assured that a similar plan would be prepared for a period of several months, » said Renatas Požėla, Director of the Fire and Rescue Department (PAGD).

Photo by D. Labutis / ELTA

It seems that no one is too much and sees the need to hurry.

« There are no specific places where to go today, that is, just assembly points where residents are assembled, and there is a transport to be used, » said Žilvinas Vainora, Advisor to Palanga Municipality.

« This year it will be updated, so you can get acquainted, but those things should change, » explained Paulius Stočkus, a readiness officer of Šiauliai Municipality.

Of the 60 municipalities, only Jonava has an evacuation plan without Vilnius.

« We started such a Tour of the PAGD leadership through municipal councils with our own message to move faster, » Požela said.

« There are tasks for municipalities and answers received, there are indicated municipalities that should be evacuated in the whole situation, are foreseen, which should be accepted, » explained the Minister of the Interior Vladislav Kondratovich.

Depending on the threat, it is still foreseen that 27 municipalities should evacuate their inhabitants and 24 to accept them.

Panevezys authorities say they have not received any specific instructions so far, but it seems that they will have to take care of the evacuated Vilnius residents.

« So far we are more host municipality. According to their calculations, we should accept nearly 35 thousand residents of Vilnius city, » said Justas Laurinavičius, Advisor to Panevėžys Municipality.

The biggest load would probably be Kaunas.

His representatives explain that the plan is for their own, but does not say how they would be with the arrivals.

« The plan itself is not publicly announced, it is only available to municipal employees, state institutions, and algorithms are not publicly disclosed, » said Žydrūnas Subačius, Deputy Preparation of Kaunas Municipality.

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Individual municipal evacuation plans in the event of a war would not make sense if they are not aligned with each other. For example, there are municipalities who, at all, refused to accept Vilnius residents fleeing from threats.

« This is primarily a financial component, because it requires the municipality to have additional funds, » explained Požėla.

The Minister of the Interior explains that municipalities have already spent money from the State Defense Fund.

« The order was recently signed, which allocated to the installation of more than € 4.5 million for the installation of collective protection sites – the necessary equipment, sleeping bags and other items to be adapted to accept people, » the Minister of the Interior said.

« According to our calculations, as far as we have provided PAGD, we would need 35 million euros for the first month to accept so many residents, » said Panevezys Municipality Advisor to Civil Safety.

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Similar problems would be resolved by the national evacuation plan of the population.

Only that during the fourth year of the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has no one yet.

« We hope that in the autumn we will have a approved national evacuation plan, which would include and put on plans of all other municipalities in coordination with one plan, » the Minister of the Interior said.

« When it is prepared, each municipality will receive new specific tasks, and then we will probably have to review them, but we will probably have to develop a new plan, » said Palanga Municipality Advisor.

In the near future, the Government is only to provide a description that provides how to develop those evacuation plans in general.

Didn’t you need to get ready before?

« I had to say. I could say that maybe the work was started before, we accelerated them, » the Minister of the Interior admitted.

By the way, Lithuania is not only responsible for the evacuation of its citizens. If necessary, Latvians with Estonians would run through the territory of our country, and Finns would also ask for help.