Heat wave temperatures damaged the underground power network; 1,800 customers affected in the district were deprived of electricity for 1 min and 200 others for 3 hours. According to the electricity utility, 2 to 3 incidents were recorded every day, but a peak of 10 incidents was, however, noted the week before. Although the emergency response teams were no longer able to close a switch on the network, which is considered to be a rare occurrence, a proportion of the agglomeration’s power supply was in fact initially ‘tripped’ by the heat; according to the press, 2,000 km of lines, some of which were quite old, had suffered from the continuous rise in temperatures. The electricity utility specified that inter-cable junctions or actual cables had broken, in particular when the high temperatures persisted at night. According to other sources, the first summer power cuts that occurred at the beginning of 2000 were the result of reduced maintenance budgets. No details were given on the presence of sensitive establishments in the district affected by the power cuts. A junction box preventive replacement programme was set up to deal with very hot years. A similar incident occurred in the Paris region on the same day (ARIA no. 32085).