After storm Éowyn, Brittany was hit by Herminia this Sunday.
Heavy rainfall led to the flooding of several rivers including La Vilaine.
On Sunday, in Ille-et-Vilaine, the town of Rennes was under water.
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A flood never seen for more than 40 years in Rennes, gusts of more than 100 km/h, the Vendée Globe village closed, rail and road traffic disrupted: the Herminia depression played spoilsport on Sunday January 26 in the western France. In the Breton capital, crossed by two rivers, the Ille and the Vilaine, the waters of the Ille and Rance canal continue to rise and dozens of houses have been flooded.
“I started barricading things, putting things in front of the doors. And I told my mother, above all, you stay upstairs, you don’t go out”says Guy, a resident confronted with rising waters, in the report at the top of this article. His mother will end up being evacuated by the firefighters, while the canal which crosses the city continues to flood.
Endless bad weather
Elected officials are taking the situation very seriously. “We are facing a phenomenon that has not happened for around forty years. We think that we are not yet at the peak for this sector”warns Nathalie Appéré, mayor of Rennes. The councilor affirms that the levels recorded this Sunday are “higher than those observed in 1981, which was a reference year for a significant flood”. The town hall issued an evacuation order on Saturday evening for four streets, which concerns around a hundred homes.
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Residents are asked to find shelter with relatives or in one of the three gymnasiums opened by the city. A crisis unit was opened. Herminia follows storm Éowyn, which was exceptionally violent across the Channel and particularly in Ireland. It brought rain and gales to the north-west of France, in areas where the soil is already saturated with water. Météo-France has placed the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the Hautes-Pyrénées and the Rhône on orange wind alert until Monday. Finistère and Côtes-d'Armor were downgraded to yellow vigilance in the middle of the day.
Morbihan will turn orange for rain-flood from 6 p.m. Sunday. Calvados, Ille-et-Vilaine, Mayenne and Orne will remain on orange flood alert until Monday. Water will continue to rise throughout the region, Vigicrues warned.
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