What can municipalities do?
HAS You refusein the province of Liège, the Municipality has launched several measures. And the Works department is on a war footing and monitoring sensitive points. Sandbags have been prepared. They will be placed in several places as a preventative measure. Wanzois who would also like to prepare can obtain bags. “We have containers in four or five strategic points in which sandbags are stored,” explains the Works alderman, Bernard Lhonnay. “As soon as heavy rain is forecast, the guard service is ready.”
No, far from it, Waremmethe works service teams carried out the cleaning of the drains, particularly at low points, to ensure good drainage of rainwater. The storm basins were checked to ensure their proper functioning and the fascines were reinforced to maintain the stability of the land.
How much rain should we expect?
The quantities of water, for the south of the Sambre-et-Meuse furrow, should reach 20 to 50 liters per square meter in just 24 hours. The south-east of the country will be particularly wet: in the province of Luxembourg, accumulations of 50 to 80 liters/m2 may fall. The IRM has also issued an orange warning for this province. In the east of the province of Liège, we could also reach 50 to 60 liters/m2. The provinces of Namur and Liège are placed in code yellow. “To give you an idea, the values for the whole month of October are generally below 70 mm of precipitation. But here, we are talking about quantities of precipitation which will reach these values, or even exceed them, in less than 24 hours.”says Fabian Debal, senior meteorologist at the Royal Meteorological Institute (IRM). The rains will therefore be quite spectacular.
Could the rivers overflow?
The risk is very present, as we highlighted this Tuesday morning. The SPW warned of the risk of a rapid increase in water flows and levels across the entire territory, with potentially exceeding the pre-alert thresholds on several rivers.
Concerning the risks of runoff (sealed areas, high relief) and saturation of the wastewater network, they will be particularly significant during the night, when the precipitation will be the most intense.
Climatologist at the University of Liège, Xavier Fettweis indicated this Tuesday morning that the amount of precipitation will not be exceptional “but it will be sufficient to generate flooding Thursday morning in Ardennes (Lesse, Ourthe), Pays de Herve (Berwinne), Vallée du Geer…”
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