The situation is improving by the hour for homes without electricity after Storm Caetano passed through on Thursday. After a peak of 270,000 homes affected last night, around 200,000 customers remained without power as of 7 a.m. Friday. “The most affected regions are Normandy (69,000), Pays-de-Loire (37,000) and Centre-Val-de-Loire (22,000),” says the electricity grid administrator.
In its morning update, the company indicates that it has “the goal of replenishing 90% of its customers, that is, 240,000 of the 270,000, in 48 hours, that is, on Saturday night and the rest on Sunday night “. These different response times can be explained by technical factors influenced by weather conditions. “The climatic episode of wind and snow is ending but the snow is still present this morning, which makes interventions difficult,” explains Enedis, who mentions winds of between 110 and 130 km/hour.
Burying power lines would expose them to flooding
The electricity network manager has pre-mobilized 2,200 of its technicians plus 400 service providers from all over France within the framework of the Rapid Intervention Force in Electricity (FIRE). These personnel did not begin repairs until early Friday morning because safety conditions were not met overnight.
Guest of the BFMTV morning show, Agnès Pannier-Runacher gave some details about the observed power outages: “The phenomenon we have is that the snow is intense and breaks the lines and therefore these are complex interventions to restore the lines”.
For the Minister of Ecological Transition, this episode that occurs more than a year after the Ciaran storm reminds us of the need to protect power lines even more. “When there is wind and when there is snow, the only way to protect them is to bury them, explains the government member. This represents a considerable investment cost and raises another issue because when we bury them is when there are. floods that we have problems.”
The next update from Enedis on the progress of interventions to restore power to homes without electricity should occur in the early afternoon.
Source: BFM TV
