flooded towns in Seine-et-Marne and Eure-et-Loir

Flooded streets, closed schools, damaged housing: several dozen people were evacuated Thursday October 10 in Eure-et-Loir and Seine-et-Marne, departments still placed on red flood alert, this Friday, after intense rains due to passage of the Kirk depression. This red vigilance, synonymous with “risk of major flooding” with “direct threat” for the safety of people and property.

In Eure-et-Loir, on the upstream Loir placed on red alert, “significant overflows [étaient] in progress in the Bonneval and Saint-Maur-sur-le-Loir sectors”warned the specialized government site Vigicrues early Thursday afternoon. In the evening, several streets of Bonneval, nicknamed the Venice of Beauce, were completely flooded and impassable to traffic, AFP journalists noted.

“We have a water level that has risen very, very sharply since we have exceeded the flood of 1961 and we have arrived at 10-12 cm from the flood of 1881, which was the reference flood in Bonneval”explained the mayor, Éric Jubert, surprised by the extent of the flooding. However, he believes that the worst is over because the decline began in the evening, “We’ve already lost a few centimeters.”

Around sixty people in total had to be evacuated, according to Éric Jubert, around twenty of whom were housed in the village hall of the town of 5,000 inhabitants, where camp beds were set up while municipal agents distributed food.

“We are overwhelmed”

“There was no other solution, we couldn’t stay”cowardly Émilien Alibert, 30 years old, evacuated with his wife and three children. He says the water rose “very quickly”flooding the ground floor of his house “up to about half”. “We had water up to our waists and we lost everything”laments his mother, Carole Mauduit, 56, who lives with him.“We need support and help, because we are overwhelmed”said the victim.

The storm required 3,700 interventions by firefighters, Prime Minister Michel Barnier said during the day, assuring that the State will be present “in post-crisis management” of these events “very serious”.

In Seine-et-Marne, placed on red flood alert from Wednesday afternoon, the Grand Morin, a tributary of the Marne, burst out of its bed, submerging fields, businesses and roads in places, and flooding the stadium, a factory and houses in the town of Pommeuse. Sitting on a plastic chair placed directly in the brownish water, Stéphane Quin says he is waiting for “the water stops rising”. “I have 40 cm of water in the kitchen”explains this 53-year-old carpenter.

“We know that we are in a flood zone, but it is rare for the Grand Morin to come that far, and it is still the fourth flood this year”he laments. In Crécy-la-Chapelle, south of Meaux (Seine-et-Marne), “the city is underwater” who went up “extremely quickly” from 4 p.m., the first deputy mayor, Fabrice Laborde, told AFP. “We take the Coulommiers flood. In the city center the water is knee-deep. et “the three accesses to the city are cut”said the elected official of this town of 4,800 inhabitants crossed by the Grand Morin. At least fifty people in difficulty, fragile or alone, were evacuated, according to him. Le Grand Morin is still placed on red alert by Vigicrues this Friday.

Mission d’inspection

If the Kirk depression caused the death of a boater in the Mediterranean, no injuries were recorded on Thursday in Seine-et-Marne or Eure-et-Loir. The rain has stopped in these departments but the episode was expected to continue further east, and it is “probable that the water will start to rise a little again”warned the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, during a visit to Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne), a town half flooded by “an extraordinary flood”according to the town hall.

Elsewhere in the territory, heavy rainfall since Wednesday could reach 120 to 130 mm in the Alpes-Maritimes, aggravated by wind gusts of up to more than 110 km/h, disrupting the operation of schools, as well as traffic. road and rail.

In the Paris region, the precipitation caused nearly 500 interventions, mainly in flooded cellars and basements, and some in prestigious sites such as the National Assembly or the Musée des Armées in Les Invalides.

The electricity distribution network manager Enedis, for its part, indicated that on Thursday at 6 p.m. there were still 20,000 customers without power, particularly in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (7,400) and the Doubs (3,300). Thursday, Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher indicated that“after the time of emergency”there would be “time for repair” and that an inspection mission would be launched “to provide feedback”. At the end of the wettest month of September in 25 years, the average annual precipitation totals have already been exceeded almost everywhere in mainland France.