Some 26,000 homes in the South-West of France were without electricity on Saturday morning following violent storms which hit the area on Friday evening, we learned from Enedis.
In total, eight departments were still affected on Saturday around 10:00 a.m. by the cuts, the most affected being the Gers (10,000 households) and the Pyrenees-Atlantiques (6,500), detailed for AFP Nicolas Desmalades, spokesperson for Enedis.
The other departments, he continued, were Hautes-Pyrnes (2,500), Haute-Garonne (2,000), Lot-et-Garonne (2,000), Landes (1,000), Dordogne (1,000) as well than Lot and Tarn-et-Garonne (1,000 for both).
Currently, it is difficult to give recovery times, we are still in the inventory and analysis of breakdowns to see exactly what needs to be done as repairs, said Mr. Desmalades, qualifying the stormy episode of significant.
Enedis teams from other French regions were called in to reinforce local staff, he said, the cuts being mainly caused by falling trees or branches on the power cables.
It is also a fall from a tree on a vehicle which injured a 65-year-old man from Pau in the Barn, the man having to be extricated by the emergency services around 7:15 p.m., we learned from the firefighters. Polytrauma and in serious condition, he was still hospitalized on Saturday morning, according to the prefecture.
The rains and strong winds gave rise to some 120 firefighter interventions in the Gers, the most affected department, according to the prefecture of the department. Several roads were cut there while in other areas of the south-west, the movement of trains could be disrupted.
In anticipation of bad weather, outdoor events had been canceled on Friday evening, such as the Pause Guitare Albi festival (Tarn) where spectators were evacuated while trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf was to go on stage, according to a correspondent from the AFP.