Since 2023, the mixed union of the Agly watershed has been trying to make diagnoses in individuals to prevent any damage in the event of a flood. This Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Barcarès, he made their 500th diagnosis. Reporting.
Marc and Corinne are sixty. They live in a tidy house of the impasse des vignes in Barcarès. Ten minutes walk from the beach and at the same distance from the angle pond but also from the pond of Salses-Leucate. Water, there are all around. And it is not to displease them. Only here, like many municipalities in the Pyrénées-Orientales, Marc and Corinne live in what is called a “flood zone”. If nature gets carried away, as it may have been the case in the past, they may thus be victims of the rise in waters. But this Thursday, April 17, 2025, the couple preferred to warn that healing. A flood diagnosis was carried out at home.
Free preventive diagnosis
This system, whose syndicate mixes of the Agly watershed (SMBVA) is master of Ouvrage, Allows to identify the sensitive points of a home in the face of the flood. “To define the existing measures to reduce any damage, to assess the cost of the measures to be implemented in order of priority to secure a house”explains Antoine Granjon, flood project manager for SMBVA. And to continue: “We started the diagnoses in December 2023. Today, at Marc and Corinne, this is the 500th. We rely on the mapping of the flood risk. For example, if it tells us that there are 50 cm of water here compared to the natural field, thanks to specific tools, we postpone this volume everywhere in the house to know how far water will go.
During the 1999 storm, we lost everything because of the floods
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That morning, while the diagnostician Nicolas Molines activates-he is part of the Osgapi design office mandated the union-, Marc explains why he wanted to have his house analyzed: “There was an information meeting in Barcarès, a few months ago, on the flood risks. It was there when I learned that we could make free diagnoses. I jumped on the occasion, it does not eat bread. It is for our safety that I do this. During the storm of 1999, I already lived in this town but in another accommodation. At the time, we lost everything.
On arrival, in a few weeks, a report will be submitted to the couple to inform them about exposure of their accommodation at the risk of flooding, as well as the measures that can be set up to protect themselves. The most widespread measures are the installation of fights (barriers preventing water from entering, editor’s note) on the doors and “anti-return valves” on worn water networks.
Read also: Risk of floods: the Department of Pyrénées-Orientales offers an “emergency kit” to the 189 municipalities concerned
If they wish, they will be able to initiate safety work according to the recommendations of this report. Work that can be taken care of at 100 %. One part by the State, another by the department and yet another by the SMBVA.
