The day after Storm Ciaran passed through the north-west quarter of France, the executive committee was mobilized. Emmanuel Macron reached Brittany on Friday, while Élisabeth Borne went to a fire station in Caen (Calvados).
The Prime Minister drew up an initial assessment, which she considers “heavy”. “Two victims died and 47 injured,” said the head of government, also highlighting the “significant material damage” without declaring a state of natural disaster at this stage. “The toll is heavy, but it could have been much more dramatic” without “the responsibility of our fellow citizens” and “the exceptional mobilization of our firefighters (and) emergency services, who carried out nearly 11,000 interventions”, she said.
“Stay vigilant” before the arrival of Storm Domingos
Arriving on site around 10:15 a.m., Élisabeth Borne visited the call center, called upon more than 2,200 times during the storm, for which the fire and rescue service (SDIS) managed more than 160 interventions. Telling her interlocutors that “what is most difficult now is restoring electricity”, the Prime Minister inquired about the situation of patients on respiratory assistance at their homes, as well as hospitals which “call for special vigilance.
At midday, Enedis announced that around 450,000 homes were still without electricity. If the Ciaran storm “is now behind us”, we must nevertheless “remain vigilant”, added Élisabeth Borne, “because there are other disturbances which are announced”, starting with the Domingos storm which is due to hit the Atlantic facade Saturday.
“There may be weakened buildings, trees that threaten to fall,” warned the Prime Minister, indicating that the government “will monitor the repair of all this damage as quickly as possible” and “assess the situation to see if it is necessary to declare a state of natural disaster.”