Power outage –
20 years ago, lightning plunged the Lake Geneva region into chaos
A lightning strike in Verbois had effects on the network as far as Montreux. And tensions between Vaud and Geneva.
Published today at 7:34 a.m.
On January 18, 2005, a little juice by candlelight at the Café du Raisin in Lausanne.
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“The lightning strike that struck our high voltage line in Verbois was exceptionally strong. Our installations are usually designed to withstand lightning.” For Philippe Furer, spokesperson for Energie Ouest Suisse (EOS), Mother Nature’s anger was at the origin of the electrical outage which plunged the Lake Geneva region into chaos for two hours on January 18, 2005. Unheard of in the memory of French-speaking electricians.
Striking at 2:42 p.m. on the Geneva banks of the Rhône, lightning struck three electrical cables and two transformers in one fell swoop. Ten minutes later, victim of an overload, the high voltage line linking the urban areas of Lausanne and Geneva also gave up the ghost. As a result, the two cities sank into chaos, deprived of electricity. The outage even spread as far as Montreux.
At Spengler in Lausanne, customers took their trouble with a smile.
Patrick Martin
The Industrial Services of the city of Lausanne were forced to cut their network serving fourteen municipalities, to avoid voltage drops damaging to electronic equipment. At 3:06 p.m., the last lights in the city center suddenly went out, TL buses were paralyzed, telephone lines were cut and many people found themselves trapped in elevators. However, there were no injuries to report.
-The affair caused tensions between the two cantons: one day after the gigantic power outage, the Geneva Industrial Services claimed that the cut had originated in Lausanne. Which was denied by EOS.
24 hours/DR
The Lake Geneva region only regained power at 4:45 p.m. “Our security of electricity supply is at the mercy of a single lightning strike, is this normal?” asked municipal councilor Eliane Rey, director of Lausanne Industrial Services and administrator of EOS. Its colleagues have been denouncing the weaknesses of the high voltage network in French-speaking Switzerland for several years.
The affair even caused tensions between the two cantons: one day after the gigantic power outage, the Geneva Industrial Services claimed that the cut had originated in Lausanne, trying to place the blame on the Vaudois. An assertion ultimately rejected by Energie Ouest Suisse (EOS).
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Claude Béda is a journalist for the 24-hour Vaudois section. Passionate about social issues and the lives of people here, he covered several regions of the canton, before joining the Lausanne editorial staff. More info
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