Tropical storm Bret moved away from Martinique on Friday, June 23, after having deprived 25,000 homes of electricity and caused the sinking of a catamaran south-east of the coast of the French island. “A gradual improvement is expected from the beginning of the afternoon”, announced the prefecture of Martinique in a situation update at 6 a.m. local time (noon in Paris), when the storm was at 180 kilometers west of its coasts.
The meteorological vigilance level for rain and waves-submersion has been lowered from red to orange. It is yellow in color for the wind. Since late Thursday, some 25,000 homes in fourteen Martinican municipalities have been without electricity, the prefecture said.
Firefighters carried out “twenty-eight minor interventions for falling trees and electric poles” between midnight and 5:30 a.m. local time (6 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in Paris), according to the same source. State services warned that schools would remain closed on Friday, while economic activity could “resume with caution”.
Off the island of the Lesser Antilles, 100 kilometers from the coast, a catamaran had been shipwrecked at the height of the cyclonic phenomenon, resulting in the deployment of “all available means to provide assistance”. However, the four occupants of the shipwrecked boat were found safe and sound on Friday, 150 kilometers off the coast of the island, and rescued by a civil security helicopter, around 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. Paris).
They had taken refuge in the boat’s survival annex and were found in “rather good condition for people who were shipwrecked and spent the night in rough seas,” Agence France-Presse told Agence France-Presse. (AFP) the pilot of the helicopter, Denis Villemin. In the sinking area, hollows reached up to 10 meters high, Météo-France reported.
Gusts of 100 to 140 km/h
The damage recorded on the territory was mainly caused by strong gusts of wind in the second part of the night. Gusts of 100 to 140 km/h were recorded by the meteorological services. After the island was placed on red alert Thursday noon (6 p.m. in Paris), the inhabitants had begun to barricade themselves.
The local authority of Martinique had triggered its technical services intervention plan (PISTe) as soon as orange vigilance was announced on Wednesday. All public transport has been interrupted and “the airport authorities have decided to close Aimé-Césaire airport” from noon Thursday, according to the prefecture.
“It’s about limiting people’s mobility as much as possible. We are not on purple alert. It’s not a cyclone ”, had tempered the prefect of Martinique, Jean-Christophe Bouvier, with the daily France-Antilles.
According to the weather report broadcast at 6 a.m. local time (12 p.m. in Paris), the winds were blowing Friday morning at around 45 km / h. But rain accumulations could still reach 100 to 120 mm, and even 150 mm locally.
In 2007, Martinique was the French West Indies island most affected by Cyclone Dean: two people lost their lives and some 400 families were left homeless.