Two days after Ciaran, a new storm called Domingos broke out on Saturday, November 4, in France, already affected by bad weather. From Pas-de-Calais to the Mediterranean and Corsica, via the Atlantic coast and New Aquitaine, around twenty departments are on orange alert for violent winds, rain, floods or strong waves.
Domingos, a priori “less severe” than its predecessor according to Météo-France, could however cause new damage in areas already affected by Ciaran, which caused at least three deaths and dozens of injuries in France. And this new depression should complicate and slow down repairs to the electricity network, still in progress, according to Enedis, which reported, Saturday at 6:30 p.m., 176,000 customers still without power since Thursday, particularly in Brittany and Normandy, compared to 260,000 at 8am.
On Sunday, shortly after midnight, 22,800 homes no longer had access to electricity, according to a publication on X (formerly Twitter) from the prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde. Across Vienna, this number stood at 3,000 early Sunday, the department prefect wrote on X.
“It’s blowing.”
“The weather remains very turbulent with frequent showers sometimes taking on a stormy character,” Météo-France described in its latest bulletin at 3 a.m. After the record winds at Ciaran on Wednesday and Thursday ? up to 207 km/h on Pointe du Raz in Finistère ? the meteorological institute recorded winds at 152 km/h on Saturday evening in Lège-Cap-Ferret (Gironde), 144 km/h in Cognac (Charente), 138 km/h in Rochefort (Charente-Maritime) or even 136 km/h in Niort.
“It’s blowing,” Lionel Quillet, mayor of Loix on the Île de Ré (Charente-Maritime), confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP). But “with a [fairly low] tidal coefficient of 40, there should be no risk of submersion. We have a fairly high level of protection, even if zero risk does not exist. »
In La Rochelle, a person was slightly injured by the fall of a tree, according to mayor Jean-François Fountaine, who told AFP to mobilize “around thirty agents” until 1 a.m. “to manage possible overflows from the rainwater system and clear trees and branches”. At the port, the gusts threw rain and sea waves towards the coast, noted an AFP correspondent. Several trees were lying on the ground, strewn with broken branches and overturned street furniture.
Tree falls on the roads
Charente-Maritime, Charente and Gironde remain on orange wind alert. An alert for submersion has been issued for Charente-Maritime and Gironde, where waves could reach eight to ten meters offshore, but also for Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Alpes-Maritimes and Corsica. -South in the Mediterranean.
An orange flood alert also includes Corrèze, Dordogne, Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, Vienne, Pas-de-Calais and Corsica. The two departments of the Isle of Beauty are also on orange rain and flood alert.
In areas already affected by Storm Ciaran, waterlogged soils and trees and infrastructure weakened by wind have fueled fears of further damage.
In Vendée, the authorities reported trees falling on the roads on Saturday evening. Vendée firefighters carried out fifty-four interventions in connection with the storm between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. The prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde reported 360 interventions early Sunday.
Transport was also very disrupted during this last weekend of the All Saints’ Day holidays. “For safety”, the circulation of regional trains has been suspended around La Rochelle and northwest of Bordeaux, according to SNCF. Tram and bus traffic was also stopped in Bordeaux until 8 a.m. on Sunday.
