If they occur, power cuts will not have the same consequences for everyone. If for the greatest number it will end with an evening spent by candlelight, for others, having no power becomes a question of survival. And there, the “scenarios of fear” castigated by Emmanuel Macron could become a reality.
From his home in Tarn, where he has been bedridden for several years by Charcot’s disease, Guilhem Gallart, aka Pone of the Fonky Family, decided to call Enedis and the authorities. In a message on his Facebook page, the music producer recalls that when he was released from the hospital, the manager of the electricity distribution network had “certified to him that they would never cut my electricity voluntarily”, he comments.
Like him, thousands of other patients in France are on respirators, “a vital device connected to the electrical network”. But beyond the respirators, which are equipped with batteries just in case, some are also connected to tracheal aspirators, mucus aspirators, which are just as vital, but which only work with electric current.
Install generators or don’t cut
In the Gaillac sector, where he lives, around thirty like him are registered with Enedis as people with vital priority. “What Enedis officially says is that if we don’t have enough to protect us from a power cut, in other words a generator, we will be evacuated to a hospital for the two hours of the cut”, explains he. But now, Pone has done a little calculation and the deal on D-Day may be a little more complex than a simple transfer to the health establishment.
“To transport me to the hospital, you need a full Samu team with its truck, and four firefighters. Transport by “normal” ambulance is not possible because they are not equipped with electrical outlets and there is no doctor. There are two Samu trucks in my area, to repatriate 30 people, which represents at the very least 30 hours of transport for a cost that flirts with 100,000 euros for the community. Let’s assume that our dear doctors, nurses and stretcher bearers from the Samu perform this miracle, (and that they are not already in intervention) the patients will have to be admitted to an intensive care unit or continuous care, but my sector has 22 intensive care beds and 20 of continuous care, no need to draw a picture of the congestion that this will create, ”notes Guilhem Gallart.
There is therefore something simpler, according to him, than this move. He therefore decided to challenge the authorities and Enedis to ask them “either to install generators for the time of the cuts, or not to cut off the electricity, our life depends on it”.
This disaster scenario, he should not have to suffer it because he has a generator at home. “But I’m not doing this for me,” says 20 minutes the member of the Fonky Family who thinks of the thousands of people whose life hangs “by an electric thread”.