Blocked highways, canceled trains, suspended school buses… If the Caetano storm “has now left the country”, 200,000 homes remain without electricity on Friday morning and thousands of truck drivers spent the night stuck in their trucks in Normandy and Franche-Comté. County.
Although the snowfall, which is rather unusual in the west of France, has decreased significantly, it has had significant consequences. Restrictions on road transport apply in certain areas on Friday while SNCF traffic remains locally disrupted.
During the night from Thursday to Friday, a serious road accident involving a BlaBlaCar bus, four cars and a two-wheeler occurred on the A6B, near Chevilly-Larue (Val-de-Marne). Five people were transported to hospital in absolute emergency, according to the prefecture. 31 people were also injured in this accident, but were in relative emergency, adds this prefectural source. Around ten people escaped unhurt.
As of 7 a.m. Friday, around 200,000 customers remained without power compared to 270,000 on Thursday. “The most affected regions are Normandy (69,000), Loire" rel="tag">Pays de la Loire (37,000) Center-Val de Loire (22,000),” specifies the electricity network manager Enedis. Around 8,000 households were also affected in Corsica. The company aims to resupply “90% of its customers, or 240,000 of the 270,000 in 48 hours, i.e. Saturday evening, and the rest Sunday evening”.
After maintaining 24 departments on orange snow and ice alert this Friday morning, Météo France finally lifted the alert at midday, downgrading a major part of the country to yellow alert. On Thursday, around fifty departments were placed on orange vigilance.
Although Storm Caetano has now left the country, the early snowfall is considered “sufficiently notable to make driving conditions difficult”, with refreezing making the roads where the snow fell “particularly slippery”. A few showers of snow or rain and snow occurred in the morning, in Normandy and Île-de-France.
Ile-de-France transport ticketing will change on January 2… And it is possible to prepare for it now. Next year, the single metro/RER ticket at 2.50 euros will replace the traditional book of 10 metro tickets, as well as the famous “origin-destination” tickets used by travelers in the suburbs. To compensate for the increase in prices, occasional users of the Ile-de-France network can subscribe to the Navigo Liberté + plan, which allows you to obtain journeys at €1.99 instead of €2.50. More information in our dedicated article.
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