It is 10:30 a.m. this Monday, January 6, 2025. The sun surreptitiously peeks out. It lights up the large, almost empty car park at Fleury-les-Aubrais station. Only the taxis wait, faithful to their post. In the station itself, one might expect not to encounter a cat. And yet.
“How do I do it?”, Karine gets angry, in front of the counter. “I didn't look at the app. I didn't know there was no train today…” Indeed, from around 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., no trains run through the stations of Orléans and Fleury-les-Aubrais. “In order to guarantee the safety of travelers, there is a total interruption of traffic,” we can read on the screens. The SNCF had anticipated it by announcing it to travelers on Sunday, on the website and the networks.
Karine wants to return to Paris “as quickly as possible”: the SNCF agent can only advise her to exchange her ticket, because her morning train will not leave. She will wait for the next one, in the middle of the afternoon, on the station seats. No choice.
“Since this morning, we have had a lot of people at the counter who were not aware, relates this SNCF agent. They are told that the trains resume from 3 p.m., approximately. It is true that a lot of “subscribers don't look at the alerts and don't pay attention.”
“It was about anticipation”
Trains can run in strong winds. That's not the problem. “But if branches break and fall on the tracks or catenaries (set of cables allowing the electrical supply of trains)it's a problem”, we are told. “There can be mud on the tracks too. So, we have to clean up.” The windy episode was not as harsh as expected in the Loiret, but it was a matter of anticipation “so that travelers do not get stuck in the trains, on the tracks”.
Deprived of electricity in Coullons and Poilly
Outside the stations, the violent winds of the Floriane depression created power cuts in the Loiret, according to Enedis Centre-Val de Loire: “At 1 p.m., 2,750 customers were without electricity in the department. Our teams are mobilized to restore electricity to these customers.”
Homes located in the east of the Loiret, particularly in the municipalities of Coullons, Poilly-lez-Gien and Sceaux-du-Gâtinais.
For their part, the firefighters carried out 20 interventions between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. in the Loiret department: 19 concerning falling trees, poles or various materials and one for an electric wire on the public highway. This latest intervention, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, caused a power outage at the aluminum smelter, impacting 16 people on technical unemployment.
“Thanks to perfect collaboration with the departmental council and the technical services of the municipalities, we were able to limit the number of our interventions and thus optimize our operational resources for emergency missions,” explain the firefighters, who numbered 47 to be mobilized.
