The Tarn-et-Garonnais was interrupted for almost an hour following an accident in a plant of RTE, the operator of the network.
A gigantic power outage occurred this Monday November 14, at the end of the afternoon, in the Tarn-et-Garonne. The incident affected 60% of the department between 4:58pm and 5:43pm At the height of the incident, no less than 130,000 homes were without power. In addition to Montauban, the sectors of Castelsarrasin, Valence d’Agen and Moissac were plunged into darkness.
If the exact origin of the fault is still unknown, “the technical incident that occurred on the network damaged a substation located in the Montauban agglomeration,” indicated Cloé Simon, communications manager at RTE, the manager of electricity transmission.
Lightning involved?
According to our information, the weather would be in question: around 4.45 pm, a violent storm plunged the agglomeration of Montauban into darkness. Several bolts of lightning have been heard on the banks of the Tarn: one of them would have struck a RTE installation causing this major grid failure.
This cut has surprised many people in shops, at the cinema, but also in companies…
74,000 homes were still affected at around 5:30 p.m. Just before 6:00 p.m., nearly 60,000 of the 130,000 homes affected by the initial outage had power. The situation should return to normal around 6.30pm for all Enedis customers.
The level crossings having been placed in a low position for safety reasons, motorists had to bear their problems with patience, as here in La Ville-Dieu where a 2km cork has formed.
RTE teams encountered some difficulties in supplying the Moissac source substation. The prefecture of Tarn-et-Garonne has activated a crisis unit to manage the incident.
Railway traffic stopped
This power outage also caused major disruptions on the SNCF network, on the Toulouse-Agen and Toulouse-Cahors axes, as SNCF Occitanie reports on Twitter. “The Montauban railway star has been affected by delays for trains using the Montauban-Cahors, Montauban-Agen and Montauban-Toulouse lines,” indicates a shift manager of SNCF Occitanie. During the power outage, all level crossings were lowered for safety reasons. Consequence: Traffic jams have formed on the roads, on both sides of these level crossings. SNCF has dispatched agents to the scene.
ud83dudd34 17:25
u274c A power outage at Montauban station causes traffic disruption on the Toulouse axis u2194ufe0f Agen & Toulouse u2194ufe0f Cahors
Our teams are looking for alternative solutions to ensure the trips concerned pic.twitter.com/FeUbDtPLcB
— liO Train SNCF Occitania (@lio_train_sncf) November 21, 2022
More info to follow…
