Haut Pays du Velay. Water cuts: it will take several days before the situation returns to normal.

Since Sunday, several municipalities have been experiencing water outages caused by a lightning strike at the Collange reservoir, which fried electronic equipment during the night of the 7th to the 8th. Officials only noticed the damage the following day, and the reservoir had emptied during the night. Since air has entered the networks, it will take time to purge it to resolve the problem.

After a near-return to normal on Monday evening, difficulties resurfaced on Tuesday as economic activity resumed after Pentecost, with high consumption once again emptying the reservoirs. "Things are starting to return to normal, but it will take several days," explains Gilles Jury, president of the Montregard Water Syndicate, who assures that agents are mobilized to do their best.

Dunières is particularly affected, as the agents were not necessarily familiar with the network managed by Véolia before the transfer of water responsibility to the community of communes on January 1. "It also turned out that the network was not in very good condition."

In addition, the re-pressurization of the networks created leaks, for example due to the age of old glued PVC pipes. The upper Dunières area was particularly affected, especially the retirement home area.