Storm Aurore: 120,000 homes without electricity, SNCF traffic is improving

Published on : 10/21/2021 – 16:03

Storm Aurora has left its mark. Some 120,000 homes were without electricity in France Thursday, October 21, at noon, while train traffic gradually resumed in northern France, after the passage of storm Aurora overnight.

More than half of the 250,000 homes deprived of electricity in the morning “have already been resupplied”, Enedis said in a situation report at noon.

“4,000 technicians and employees of service companies are currently at work,” adds the manager of the electricity network, who specifies that he has triggered the “Rapid Electricity Intervention Force (Fire)”.

Improvement at SNCF

In addition, “several hundred incidents” were recorded on the railroads, “with trees, branches and various objects (a trampoline, tarpaulins, sheets, etc.) which flew off and fell on them. tracks or on overhead lines “, according to SNCF.

Traffic was improving, however, in the most affected regions (Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Île-de-France, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes), SNCF told AFP at midday. TGV traffic was not affected by the storm.

In Île-de-France, major disruptions were recorded on most of the RER lines and trains passing through Saint-Lazare station in the morning. But the majority functioned almost normally at midday “with some still difficult points in the process of clearing, in particular in the Pontoise area, north of line D in the Val d’Oise and Paris-Crépy”. The resumption is “envisaged around 5 pm”, specifies the SNCF.

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A thousand agents were mobilized overnight to clean up, restore damaged infrastructure, ensure circulation and adapt transport plans, while the first trains were sent to reconnoitre with agents equipped with chainsaws to clear the vehicles. tracks, according to SNCF.

In Normandy, traffic remained interrupted on certain axes, “the time to recognize all the tracks on the lines”, specifies the railway group. The Caen-Paris and Deauville-Paris lines were to resume around 5 p.m. and Le Havre / Rouen / Paris and Paris-Granville around 2 p.m.

In Hauts-de-France, the Paris-Amiens line has resumed but Paris-Laon will have to wait 6 p.m.

“Find out about the trains that run before going to the station, and stay cautious,” Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari wrote in a tweet.

Aurora now in Germany

During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, a tree lay down on the track on the Paris-Granville train line and a hundred passengers were taken care of by the firefighters and the city of Argentan, in connection with the SNCF , announced the prefecture of Orne Thursday on Twitter.

In Brittany, several lines were also cut by bad weather, in particular between Rennes and Saint-Malo or Quimper and Brest. In Plozévet (Finistère), a house under construction collapsed during the passage of the storm, noted an AFP photographer.

The trees, most still having their leaves, were easily uprooted by this storm, the first of the season, Météo France said in a bulletin.

Gusts of 175 km / h were measured at Fécamp (Seine-Maritime), 143 km / h at Granville (Manche), 134 km / h at Île de Groix (Morbihan), and 109 km / h at Paris Montsouris , according to the meteorological institute.

The Aurora depression continues to move east and now concerns Germany, according to Météo France.

With AFP