At the end of the year, we look back at the events that marked 2024 in the region. On Friday May 17, heavy rains hit eastern France causing flooding. The Moselle and Bas-Rhin suffered significant damage. Remember…
Sound N°1 – Retro 2024: a rainy year marked by unprecedented floods
A red vigilance that is slow to be put in place
Friday morning, intense rains fell on the territory. The Moselle and Bas-Rhin are placed on orange alert due to the risk of flooding. By midday, emergency services had already been largely mobilized. Jacqueline Mercury Giorgetti, director of the office of the Prefect of the Mosellereacted live on our antenna at noon.
More than 1000 calls received and more than 300 interventions are currently underway in nearly 70 municipalities. It is the east of the department which is the most affected, in particular three sectors: Boulay and Bouzonville, Sarreguemines, Sarralbe and Puttelange-aux-Lacs and Saint-Avold.
Intense rains described as unexpected by Florian Pasiecznik, forecaster at Météo Grand-Est.
There, you have to go back at least 50 years to find such accumulations of rain over a fairly short period and over such a large area. So, you have to imagine, it's as if in the last 24 hours, the equivalent of 110 one-liter bottles of water had fallen on an area of one square meter. The difficulty in forecasting this episode is that we are in a cold drop situation. The cold drop is the bane of meteorologists, because it is quite unpredictable. We were expecting a lot of rain, but it still rained a little more than the initial forecast.
Aerial views of Sarreguemines
Diemeringen under water
In the afternoon, the flood alert finally turns red. On the Alsatian side, it is the town of Diemeringen which finds itself under water. The mayor, Nicole Oury, describes the situation from his office.
All the streets are flooded, businesses too. From my office, I see the firefighters in a canoe. People were sheltered at the cultural center.
A day that will have months-long consequences for traders. Stephanie Genay, pharmacy owner, saw his business devastated.
There is a meter of water which rose in a very short time. We put everything we could up high, but there is a large part that has to be thrown away. The team was locked inside, so the firefighters came to get them with a zodiac. We tried to seal it with bags, we didn't think it was going to rise like that.
Many businesses took several months to reopen. On September 4, we went to the reopening of three boutiques: “Mille et 1 pointures”, “Au fil de la mode” and “Nakina boutique”.
On the Moselle side, we can cite the swimming pools of Sarreguemines and especially Freyming-Merlebach which had to close following technical problems linked to water infiltration. On the road side, the RD603 between Hombourg-Haut and Moulin-Neuf was closed for 6 months following landslides.
Material damage but no casualties
Miraculously, these floods caused almost no casualties. In the nest of the Sarralbe storks, a young one did not survive. The results show the equivalent of two months of rain in 48 hours. The Moselle firefighters carried out 953 interventions. More than 1015 firefighters were present on the ground. Several hundred municipalities were recognized as being in a state of natural disaster for this episode.
The totals for the day of May 17:
• 149 mm at Gros-Réderching
• 96 mm at Berus in Germany
• 5 mm in Saarbrucken
• 7 mm in Berg
• 119 mm to Piglets
• 108.1 mm à Seingbouse
A day that reflects a rainy year
An intense episode which reflects a generally rainy year. THE forecaster Florian Pasiecznik gives us some examples in the commune of Seingbouse.
In January 2024, there was 71mm of water per m², which is equivalent to 13% more compared to a normal year. In February, we were +34% above normal for rain. If we look at the month of April, we are at +41% compared to normal.
These excess rains continue throughout the rest of the year. It is only in December that precipitation is below seasonal norms. Rain that makes you feel cold.
But temperatures are around 1°C higher in May. In August the maximums were 2.2°C above the norms with 26.2°C on average over the whole month.
In summary, 2024 has been a hot and humid year.
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