Severe Weather Disrupts Electricity and Water Supply on Martinique Island: 5,000 EDF Customers Still Without Power

The weather conditions of the last few hours have seriously disrupted the electricity supply. This Sunday morning (October 22, 2023), 5,000 EDF customers are still without power. Furthermore, several neighborhoods on the island do not have drinking water.

Peggy Pinel-Fereol • Published October 22, 2023 at 10:55 a.m., updated October 22, 2023 at 1:03 p.m.

Le Diamant, le Carbet, Saint-Joseph, the Balata district in Fort-de-France, le François, le Lorrain or even le Morne-Rouge, depending on the last point of the electricity supplier, the power is cut in these municipalities. A situation that the supplier justifies by the weather conditions.

At 11 a.m., EDF announced 5,000 customers still without electricity, compared to 9,000 at 9:30 a.m.

Since Saturday evening (October 21, 2023), EDF teams have been mobilized to restore power. An outage affected around 100,000 customers around 8 p.m. Many communities were affected. By 9:01 p.m., almost all load-shedding customers had been supplied with power. 1,400 subscribers spent part of the night without electricity.

Last night, Martinique was hit by winds, lightning and rain. The first customers were deprived of electricity from 6 p.m., then at 8 p.m. a high voltage line was hit by lightning. 100,000 customers were cut off for just under an hour. We got them back up pretty quickly. During the night, rain and lightning caused outages in different pockets of the territory. At 7 a.m. this morning, we had 10,000 customers without power. At 11 a.m., we are at 5,000 and we hope to restore them during the afternoon. Our teams are on two fronts. They carry out maneuvers to resupply as many customers as possible. Then they will do troubleshooting to repair the network and put it back into service as quickly as possible.

Kévin Launey, permanent management, connection and engineering department assistant

Deficits in the supply of drinking water are also observed in several municipalities. Related disruptions “turbidity in rivers and power outage“, indicates the community water and sanitation management of the Odyssi center.

During heavy rain events, production plants no longer receive water, but mud. So water producers must restart their stations. This is the case with the SME.

Due to heavy rains last night, all water production plants have been shut down and are being restarted. The situation has not yet been restored everywhere at midday, interventions are underway. Disturbances in water distribution in the South Area and North Cape are therefore to be expected in the second part of this Sunday and in the evening. Espace Sud, CAPNord, and their operator SME, thank their subscribers for their understanding and patience.

For its part, Odyssi indicates that the water supply is disrupted, or even interrupted, in the following Lamentin and Saint-Joseph districts:

Square Rock Tank
Lot of square rocks Morne Serpent Reservoir
chemin Izidee- Bel air – chemin Alexandrine
chemin Luillet Reservoir Croisé Manioc
Behind Bois – Bellème – Choisy – Belfort
Balleu – Hab Prosperity

Power supply in the Fort-de-France neighborhoods has been restored. For others, a return to normal is expected by the start of this Sunday evening.

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