Météo-France lifted, on Friday February 23, the warnings for violent winds or rain-flooding which disrupted the circulation of certain trains on Thursday, but an orange warning for floods remains in Deux-Sèvres, in Vendée, in Maine-et -Loire and Loire-Atlantique according to the bulletin published at 10 a.m.. This orange flood vigilance concerns the rivers of the Sèvre Niortaise, the Sèvre Nantaise and the Lay, according to Vigicrues.
On Friday, the weather will be rough from the English Channel and the Belgian border to Auvergne and the west of the Pyrenees. Under a very cloudy sky, there will be plenty of rain or showers, locally stormy near the coasts, giving snow from 700 to 800 meters above sea level in the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. The west to southwest wind will blow in gusts of up to 60 to 70 kilometers per hour (km/h) inland, 80 to 90 km/h locally, 100 km/h near the Channel coast. and the Atlantic. On the other hand, from the east of Lorraine and Alsace to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region and to the east of the Pyrenees, the morning will be calm and sunny, although with a little wind. west up to 60 to 70 km/h near the Mediterranean.
With winds exceeding 100 km/h and torrential rain, Storm Louis swept across France on Thursday, where twenty-seven departments had been placed by Météo-France on orange alert, most for violent winds. This is the biggest storm since the start of the year, but it is of less intensity than Ciaran and Domingos, which caused the death of three people and deprived more than 1 million homes of electricity, especially in Brittany, at the beginning of November 2023.
Friday morning, the distribution network manager Enedis announced that around 35,000 homes were still without electricity in a large part of northern France, while power had been restored to 55,000 others since Thursday evening. Enedis assured that it would also be for the “very large majority” remaining homes “by the end of the day”.
A motorist trapped in his car
In Deux-Sèvres, affected by orange alert for floods, a 52-year-old motorist died, swept away in a river, firefighters announced. The driver found himself trapped in his car after taking a blocked road near Saint-Georges-de-Noisné. “At 1 p.m., the man walked onto the bridge and the strong current took him into the river. His car was found a hundred meters away stuck in the trees. Trapped inside, the man drowned »they clarified.
In Dordogne, a tree fell around 4 p.m. on the car of a couple in their sixties while they were stopped at a red light installed for work, in the town of Buisson-de-Cadouin, said the firefighters. The driver and his wife were unharmed. A logger cut the branches that prevented them from getting out of the vehicle.
As a precaution, the SNCF decided to suspend train traffic in Hauts-de-France, Brittany, Normandy and New Aquitaine on Thursday, to “guarantee the safety of all”. Trees fell on the tracks and overhead lines. “The resumption of traffic on these lines will be effective Friday during the morning”, she clarified. Traffic was also suspended in Normandy on several lines circulating in the region and to neighboring regions.
In Nantes, a section of the eastern ring road was cut off due to flooding, said Bison Futé.