Around 150,000 homes remain without electricity and many roads have been disrupted due to poor traffic conditions due to the Caetano storm, for which Météo-France has lifted the orange alert even if a refreezing phenomenon remains to be feared on Friday evening.
“Storm Caetano caused a first winter episode, early for the season, with violent winds and snow”, underlined Météo-France at midday. “Under the influence of a descent of polar air, temperatures have dropped to levels worthy of a month of January. The temperatures are very cold, sometimes freezing, especially on the snow-covered ground this Friday morning,” specified the 'body.
At noon, 51 departments, mainly in the northern half of France, remained on alert, but none was in orange anymore. The meteorological institute, however, warned of a “risk of slippery phenomena due to refreezing from Normandy to Franche-Comté next night”.
The storm caused numerous power outages. “The electricity distribution network faced violent winds and (sticky) snowfall which caused trees or branches to fall on the cables,” reported the electricity network manager Enedis, which still counted 150,000 homes without electricity at 3:00 p.m.
Normandy (60,000), Loire" rel="tag">Pays de la Loire (30,000) and Centre-Val de Loire (14,000) are the most affected. Enedis, which has installed a crisis unit, hopes to restore power to 90% of its customers within 48 hours.
But as soon as Caetano left, the maritime prefecture of Cherbourg warned of the arrival of depression Bert which could blow “on the Channel coast of the North Sea” until the middle of the day on Saturday, with winds of force 7 to 8 (50 to 70 km/h) and “strong gusts”.
– Plunge temperatures –
Poor traffic conditions caused numerous accidents, the most serious involving a coach, four cars and a two-wheeler Thursday evening on the A6b motorway, near L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne ). The biker is between life and death, while four people are in absolute emergency and 31 in relative emergency, according to the police headquarters.
In Franche-Comté, 2,000 to 2,500 heavy goods vehicles were blocked on the A36 motorway (Beaune-Mulhouse), stored in rest areas or on the roadway. A lane has been cleared to allow cars to circulate.
With drawn faces, Nina Le Theix spent the night in her car near Montbéliard. Since she had refueled beforehand, she was able to keep her engine running to stay warm. But “we saw a lady with her husband, in an electric car, they have been out of battery for an hour,” she noted before finally being released mid-morning.
Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône (APRR) announced that traffic was gradually resuming on the A36, around 5:30 p.m.
Traffic jams also in Orne on the A28 due to heavy goods vehicles stuck on a slope by ice, trucks which were traveling despite the prefectural ban order, noted the prefecture. This specifies that “all 200 immobilized heavy goods vehicles which have violated” this decree “will be fined 135 euros”.
School transport was interrupted Thursday and Friday in several western departments, but also in the Paris region, in the center and east of France.
– 18 hour delay –
The disruptions also affected rail traffic, with more than 400 trees falling on the tracks, according to an SNCF update at 1:00 p.m.
A train on the Paris-Granville line was blocked at Argentan station (Orne) on Thursday evening. The 162 passengers had to sleep in a gymnasium before being transported to their destination by coach, according to the prefecture.
Furthermore, Easyjet confirmed that one of its aircraft, which was to leave Basel-Mulhouse airport on Thursday around 5:00 p.m., did not finally take off until… Friday at 11:00 a.m. for Toulouse, a delay of 18 hours during which the travelers remained stuck on board the aircraft for a long time.
“Hotel availability in Basel was unfortunately limited and we have therefore informed customers who had to make their own arrangements that they would be refunded,” according to the airline.
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