You have certainly heard and seen the thunderstorms this Sunday afternoon May 15 throughout the Mayenne department. From 4 p.m., the emergency services were strongly mobilized to deal with it. The fire department’s call center received nearly 220 calls concerning bad weather. A hundred firefighters were mobilized, just for the afternoon.
According to Keraunos, the French storm observatory, lightning fell 13,500 times in two hours across France. A quarter of éclairs just in the department of Mayenne, or 3,300 times!
5,400 homes without electricity
Across the whole of the department, 37 flooding of premises or houses were treated as well as an overflow of a storm basin in the municipality of Mayenne. Relief matters too two mudslides and several downed power lines. According to the Mayenne prefecture, 5,400 subscribers including industries and farms were affected this Sunday afternoon. Their recovery is still in progress at the end of the evening this Sunday, there are still several hundred homes still without electricity.
A TER blocked on the way
Downstream, lightning caused a pavilion fire at a place called Le Paradis. An 18-year-old man was taken to the rescue and was slightly injured. 33 firefighters from five rescue centers mobilized to extinguish the fire which spread to the attic of the neighboring house.
In the Port-Brillet sector to the west of Laval, a TER with 109 passengers on board was blocked in the middle of the track, which generated the cutting of the Laval-Rennes line, the time of the investigations. The LGV for its part, was not affected by the storms. Finally, the gendarmerie lost its emergency lines, which could be restored at 6:45 p.m.