On this woman’s garage door, we can still see the water level, approximately 1 meter 20. “The water accumulated, and the garage door gave way under the pressure, it was a tsunami”, she says, still shocked by this very impressive scene. Fortunately, she was not injured and was able to leave the scene in time. This Wednesday evening, it was when she returned from work that she discovered the bad weather flowing straight towards her home. “It’s the apocalypse”she says, looking at the extent of the damage.
A trauma
“The scooter was floating in all that watershe says. I went out with my two cats and luckily I wasn’t hurt.” She spent many minutes trying to contact emergency services, overwhelmed by the number of calls and interventions everywhere in the department. While we are once again on orange alert for thunderstorms this Thursday at the end of the day, this resident remains on the alert.
Matthieu Bonhoure
In another area of the city, water rushed down the road to completely flood an underground garage and the ground floor of a residence. The sanitation tank won’t stop pumping, but there’s still more than half left to empty. “It’s impressive”, confides Philippe, one of the two employees sent there. There was so much water in the garage that the solutions to evacuate it were not enough and became completely clogged.
The search for a solution
Homes and businesses were also affected by these floods, sometimes with up to 15 centimeters of water inside. This is the case for Mélisande who moved here just a month ago. This Thursday, these things are spread out outside drying, but everything is soaked. A recurring problem in certain districts of the city, notably that of Douet which is always under water whenever severe bad weather sweeps the city.
This is why discussions have been underway for around thirty years in the city to try to remedy these floods. A study is currently underway with the metropolis to see if the creation of two new storm basins in the municipality. The mayor, Laurent Turquois, is impatiently awaiting the result of this investigation, which could ease the daily lives of residents in these often disaster-stricken areas. In the meantime, sandbags have been made available to residents affected by this water intrusion.
