Relief efforts in Upper Savinja Valley focused on waste removal and road repair

"We are still establishing road connections between villages and farms," Luče Mayor Klavdij Strmčnik told the STA on Wednesday, adding that Luče is difficult to access so they are working with whatever machinery they have.

The municipality has water, which should still be boiled before use, and electricity. Generators are still in use in some places.

The mayor will meet with residents of Struge on Wednesday to discuss possible solutions for those whose homes were destroyed or damaged. "We will try to find replacement locations for new houses for those who want them," he said.

Luče and the neighbouring Solčava are still closed for tourists.

Works on the main road between Ljubno ob Savinji and Luče, crucial for daily migrations, should begin on Wednesday with a meeting to approve the construction of a protective wall.

Three temporary bridges arrived from the Czech Republic under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, reads the government website on international flood relief aid. The bridges will be set up in Črna na Koroškem and Luče.

Debris has been cleaned from most flooded buildings, which are now being disinfected. Cleaning debris and landslides from farmlands and smaller roads will also be necessary, the mayor said.

Strmčnik believes that the start of the school year should be delayed by a few days in the affected areas. "Most of our pupils are commuters and our roads are in very poor condition at the moment," he said.

Some school buildings are serving as civil protection headquarters or warehouses for material aid. In Gornji Grad parts of the school were flooded but will be cleaned by 1 September, according to Mayor Anton Špeh.

Cleaning the Dreta River, which damaged all bridges in Gornji Grad, is a priority to avoid floods in the future, said Špeh. They mostly need heavy machinery, he added, and they limited the number of volunteers.

Current data shows that around 100 houses were destroyed in the municipality.

A ring road was in construction in Gornji Grad but the floods destroyed a part of the viaduct construction, causing at least EUR 1 million worth of damage and delaying the project by at least six months. The project was originally set to be completed by April 2024.

In Ljubno ob Savinji removing waste is also the priority. Several local roads are still impassable but are undergoing repair, said Mayor Franjo Naraločnik.

There are currently 13 displaced families in the municipality. A possible long-term solution would be renovating empty houses with the help of the municipality, Naraločnik believes.

Further down the Savinja River, in the Mozirje and Nazarje municipalities, most of the affected buildings have been cleaned up and sanitised, also with the help of many volunteers, and the most urgent works are done.

What now awaits them is time-consuming measures such as cleaning up streams and repairing roads, Nazarje Mayor Matej Pečovnik told the STA, pointing to the enormous amounts of post-floods waste, which has to be dealt with.

In Braslovče, the local authorities are also focused on waste removal. More than 250 homes were flooded, and waste keeps piling up.

They have started urgent work to prevent any additional flooding come the next batch of heavy rain, Mayor Tomaž Žohar told the STA. People are desperate, so mobile teams providing psychological support are a blessing, he added.