“We only live this once in his life”. Deputy Departmental Director of SDIS 35, Colonel Mathieu Malfait spent the New Year in Mayotte, ravaged by Cyclone Chido on December 14. On the spot a few days before him, from December 22, another Bretillian, Lieutenant Charles-Alban Le Goff, a voluntary firefighter in Pacé for 22 years, has also volunteered. “I took 15 days of vacation to go there and my employer, the city of Pacé, offered me half”. The two officers were assigned to command posts to coordinate the emergency services. The Malfait colonel's mission was to pilot the action of the 800 firefighters deployed on site.
“When you get, it's shocking”
A mission to mark you with a hot iron. “We were three colonels mobilized, it had never happened,” he explains. It is a mission that we will only do once in his career, no one had known that. We will not relive this kind of intervention. There, we are in a full department ravaged, where everything is impacted ”. “When you get there, it shocks because everything is devastated. There are no more leaves in the trees, the hills are brown and not green as they should be, recalls Lieutenant Le Goff. And then there is sheet metal everywhere, the roofs are torn off. »»
“In the washing machine permanently”
On the spot, their mission is to have rescue to populations, distribute water and food, but also protect buildings, cover the roofs, and take care of logistical flows by air and sea. “For three weeks, we worked 15 hours a day, with five hours of sleep per night, but you get up without difficulty,” says Mathieu Malfait. We did not have a single day without a concern, without a problem to manage ”.
Among them, Marine Le Pen's visit to the island during which two barges were telescoped, or the difficult management of the uninterrupted flow of food and equipment at the airport. “One day, we had to receive a water container and in fact, it was filled with bleach, it was necessary to find solutions to supply the population. You are in the washing machine permanently. »»
-Waved by this extraordinary mission, the two Bretillian firefighters left “with a twinge in the heart because there is intensity, but that gives meaning to our mission. When we left, we could see that life resumed a little because you could smell the smell of bread in a bakery. ” From this Monday, October 27, schools will gradually reopen in Mayotte. One more sign that life is starting to resume its course. Very slowly.
