Cn the morning of Sunday October 20 in Gironde, the flood waters are receding and the flood alert level has been downgraded from orange to yellow. More fear than harm. The water has peacefully receded from the promenade along the quays of Bordeaux. The few closed lanes will reopen. And Saturday evening was quiet for the firefighters.
A little less for Xavier Crabey, who lives at the end of Chemin de Guiteronde, in Villenave-d’Ornon. “It started Friday evening, with water in front of my house. Then Saturday morning. And yesterday [samedi, NDLR] Evening again, my neighbor and I were there, scraping to make evacuation trenches. The Garonne overflowed the dike three times in two days. »
Welcome to the Island of the Jews, which is an island in name only. The place is atypical. At the end of a private road serving quarries, mountains of inert waste give way to rows of vines, then the river. At the very edge, an isolated house divided into two dwellings. “A piece of history and nature in the city,” explains Xavier Crabey, who has just removed a bag of sand from the entrance to this accommodation that he has been renting for ten years. “The building is a former cellar of the Château de Guiteronde, which dates from 1535. It was on this estate that nuns invented the Bordeaux canelé. »
It’s hard to live closer to water. “Why do we live here? Listen to this silence. You hear the birds. We also come across deer and wild boars,” explains this construction worker who loves nature, whom he claims to know well. “The Garonne is a large, quiet river. Compared to a small river subject to flash floods, we never have a problem. »
Work in sight
Or almost: “The only concern is submersion and the breakage of the dike. For ten years, we didn’t have any. But last March, I was quietly in the garden when I heard a huge crack. The dike had given way. Firefighters calculated that the flow rate of the leak was 25 cubic meters per second. Hundreds of hectares were flooded. »
During the March floods the dike gave way and the flood severely affected the Guiteronde and path sector.
See B.
Since then, he has lived with the vagaries of the river. A cofferdam is permanently installed at the entrance door. This weekend again, he was used. “Look, we can still see the path of the water: from the dike to my septic tank, and then a torrent to my door. My homemade cofferdam held, the water did not come in. It went up to this point: 15 cm high. »
“The Garonne is a large, quiet river. Compared to a small river subject to flash floods, we never have a problem”
According to him, the phenomenon occurs “each time high tides combine with rain upstream of the Garonne and its tributaries. This creates accumulations of water, which meet here. »
Villenavez does not despair of a drier future. “It must have been twenty years since this dike has been maintained. Apparently, Bordeaux Métropole has released funds for a project to strengthen the dike. Normally, this should rise to the height of the stakes you see there. There is also talk of driving sheet piles deep into the ground. In the meantime, the Metropolis is very responsive as soon as I request it. »
A look at the river and the vineyard: “Without the prospect of work on the dike, we would have to leave here. And it would be heartbreaking.”
