Roofs blown away, trees on the tracks and overturned trailers: strong gusts of wind swept the Center-East on Monday, where two departments remain on orange alert, but the highly requested emergency services have not reported any injuries at this stage.
At the start of the afternoon, the gusts linked to the Bert depression reached 143 km/h in Saint-Chamond in the Loire, a department placed by Météo-France on orange “violent wind” alert until 6:00 p.m., like its neighbor of the Rhône. Ain, Isère, Saône-et-Loire, Haute-Loire and Jura have returned to yellow vigilance.
“In a small eastern half of the country, the winds remain strong but they are starting to ease ahead of the rainy front which is progressing from the west,” specifies the meteorological institute in its 4:00 p.m. bulletin.
No injuries have yet been reported, but the damage observed is numerous and sometimes spectacular.
In Isère, the roofs of a supermarket and a high school were bent or even torn off by the wind, while on the A47 motorway the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle found itself lying on the road, causing traffic jams between Lyon and Saint-Étienne.
Train traffic on several railway lines was disrupted by falling trees on the tracks. Other lines, notably that between Saint-Étienne and Lyon, one of the busiest in France, had been interrupted as a precaution until the evening, without replacement coaches, according to the SNCF Auvergne-Rhône account -Alps.
Traffic has been able to resume on the Auvergne lines since 4:00 p.m., except on the axis between Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon. The overall resumption of traffic in the AURA region is planned for Tuesday morning, but the SNCF nevertheless invites its travelers to find out on the TER site or a mobility application to find out if their train will run.
In Lyon, the wind blew up to 125 km/h and tram lines were stopped, again due to falling trees, and relay buses were deployed. North of the city, in Anse, the gusts fanned the flames of a fire which broke out in a warehouse, and pushed the black smoke emanating from it towards the A6, where traffic was greatly reduced.
Storm Bert hit the United Kingdom and Ireland on Saturday, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and heavy snow, disrupting transport and leaving tens of thousands of homes without electricity.
