A 62-year-old man died on Friday in Helleville, in the Nord-Cotentin, while sawing a tree trunk in his yard after Storm Austen had passed. He suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest and had called the emergency services himself, according to Ouest-France. Despite their intervention, firefighters were unable to resuscitate him. The Manche prefecture treats the death as an indirect consequence of the storm.
The bad weather also left two people seriously injured in the department. The prefecture said on X that two people were taken into absolute emergency care, including one person injured on the A84 after a collision with a tree. The SAMU also recorded 17 relative emergencies linked to the storm.
Violent winds caused significant material damage on Friday morning. Gusts exceeding 130 km/h were recorded between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. at Barneville-Carteret, Granville and Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue. Firefighters carried out 157 interventions, including 59 roofs torn off, 32 fallen trees and 31 electrical lines on public roads.
At 5 p.m., 20,500 people were still without electricity in the department, where Enedis teams were working to restore power. The orange alert for violent winds was lifted at 6 p.m. after the weather gradually eased. Storm Austen, which crossed western and northern France on Friday, was continuing toward the Benelux after disrupting transport.