The winds blew strongly in Creuse this Thursday, November 21 and during the night with gusts between 80 and 106 km/h regarding the values recorded. These violent winds caused a lot of damage throughout the department. Starting with falling trees on the road network. The departmental roads agents carried out more than 200 interventions since midday Thursday to clear these obstacles. They are still hard at work this Friday. The most affected sectors are those of Boussac, Guéret, Auzances and La Souterraine. “Delicate work, especially in the middle of the night underlines Stéphane Noël, who supervised the on-call duties, because there were cables tangled in the tree branches “.
At midday on November 22, four departmental roads were still blocked:
- the RD 62 in the commune of Marsac
- the RD 57 in the town of Saint-Goussaud
- RD 5 in the town of Saint-Martin-Sainte-Catherine
- the RD 48 in the town of Anzême at a place called Le Vignaud
“We put candles. It was Christmas early!”
These roads are closed to traffic because electric cables are on the ground and we must wait for the intervention of ENEDIS to free them safely. Trees have sometimes dragged down electrical cables, causing cuts in several thousand homes in Creuse. Up to 7,500 homes were without power at the height of the storm. There were still 4,500 without electricity this Friday morning, notably Bussière-Saint-Georges, Glénic and Saint-Dizier-Masbaraud. This town near Bourganeuf has been without power since 3 p.m. Thursday. The municipal teams were particularly active early this Friday morning to welcome the school's students in good conditions, by installing a generator to turn on the boiler, explains the mayor, Joël Royère. “even though the children arrived at the daycare at 7 a.m. and were a little cold at first, by the time it warmed up. The temperature had dropped to 13 degrees in the classes. And then we didn't have any light so we put out candles. It was Christmas early!”. The town also installed a generator to be able to heat the dishes served in the canteen. The restoration of electricity throughout Saint-Dizier Masbaraud will not take place before 4 p.m. this afternoon.
A hundred firefighters on duty
These power cuts also affected the SFR and Bouygues mobile phone and internet network. the Bouygues relay site in Saint-Vaury was thus deprived of power at 7 a.m. this Friday morning. By the time agents installed a generator, the network was gradually coming back into place at the end of the morning.
Around a hundred firefighters were also mobilized. They carried out 45 interventions in the department between Thursday afternoon and Friday noon. They were called mainly to torn tiles, fallen chimneys, trees that fell on homes and roads. A roof was torn off in the Pionnat area. Material damage but fortunately no injuries.
Caetano also disrupted rail traffic. No train ran for example between Limoges and Vierzon, in both directions this Friday morning. The POLT line should return to normal around 1 a.m. this Friday.
