More than 90% of households without electricity by the snow fell Thursday on the Rhone-Alps were refueled but 29,000 were still without power Monday at midday, according to Enedis. The affected homes are in Drôme, Isère, Ardèche and Rhône. The snow, heavy and sticky, caused trees to fall on the power lines and damaged the cables, depriving up to 330,000 homes in total.
The distribution network manager has deployed 2,300 agents and hundreds of generators in recent days to recharge them, especially in the most remote areas. In Isère, a couple in their seventies were found dead Sunday at his home, poisoned by carbon monoxide from a generator used in waiting for a return of the current.
In Drôme-Ardèche, most lines restored
The Orange telephone operator has also indicated that more than 50,000 of the 60,000 lines of telephone or internet network cut by bad weather in Drôme-Ardèche had been re-established. In Franche-Comté, more than 2,200 households were also deprived of electricity Monday morning in the departments of Doubs and Haute-Saone following snowfall occurred Sunday, according to Enedis.
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In the Vosges, around 1:30 pm, there were still 1,000 stagnant homes in mountain communes in the east of the department, André Desirée, the territorial director of Enedis in the department, told AFP. By mid-morning, "at the height of the crisis," some 2,000 households had been deprived of electricity, he added.