More than a thousand people evacuated, roads flooded, cows swept away by the floods… “exceptional” rains hit France this Thursday, October 17. The authorities continue to call for the greatest caution this Friday morning. If no department is on red alert anymore, 18 departments remain affected by an orange alert.
The elements were unleashed. Barely a week after the passage of depression Kirk, three meteorological episodes hit France this Thursday, October 17. France was the scene all day long of a Cévennes episode in Ardèche, a Mediterranean episode in the Alpes-Maritimes and a depression which rose from the Basque country to the Ile de France, creating scenes of chaos.
These heavy precipitations were expected since the beginning of the week. But we could never have imagined such a deluge. Particularly in the Ardèche terrain, where the precipitation was the heaviest.
“We are facing a situation which is unprecedented in its scale. 600 millimeters of water on the Ardèche is unheard of in living memory,” the Minister of Transition summarized in the afternoon. ecological Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
In Mayres, a small town of 257 inhabitants east of Aubenas, a total of 686 mm of rain was recorded in 48 hours. In the neighboring department of Lozère, in Vialais, a total of 711 mm was recorded between Wednesday and Friday midnight.
Concretely, if this rain had fallen evenly over an area of one square meter, the water line would be located 71.10 centimeters above the ground.
“The city was under water in 3h30”
As a result of this impressive rainfall throughout the central-east and south-east of the country, spectacular floods and floods kept firefighters busy all day. In Givors, in the Rhône, 47 people were stranded for several hours in a shopping center.
“The city was under water in 3.5 hours,” says the mayor of the town, Mohamed Boudjellaba, on BFMTV. “I have already seen floods but not of this magnitude,” testifies the councilor, who specifies that 400 people were welcomed in emergency accommodation centers.
Several departmental roads were closed due to flooding or landslides, as was the A47 motorway between Lyon and Saint-Étienne. Surprised by the rapid rise in water, many cars were swallowed up. In Haute-Loire, “five unfortunate cows” were swept away by the waves.
In Ardèche, in the town of Annonay, crossed by two rivers, the waters rose suddenly in the morning when the Ternay dam, to the north, overflowed. “In the space of ten minutes there was water everywhere,” relates Patricia Montagne who lives in the city center.
“It was starting to make waves, and the waterspouts started arriving,” carrying “staggering quantities of wood.”
Paris under water
At the height of the event, 6 departments were on red alert and 34 others had been placed by Météo-France on orange alert for storms, rain-floods or floods. This Friday, no department is on red alert, but 18 remain on orange alert.
In the Paris region, the departments of the inner suburbs were also affected by this second level of alert. In the capital, the area around Montparnasse station was submerged and many streets were flooded.
In the context of bad weather, a tree fell on the road in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, as a man and two children passed by. The man died and the two children were treated in relative emergency, according to information from BFMTV.
Vigilance remains in order this Friday
If the events of this Thursday, October 17 are impressive and unprecedented, they nevertheless seem very localized. In total, across the country, Agence France Presse counted more than a thousand evacuations in the evening, the vast majority in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region.
The downpours created major disruptions to the electricity networks, with a thousand homes without power in the middle of the afternoon, and to transport, AFP said.
In addition, rail traffic will remain disrupted this Friday, October 18 and many roads will remain inaccessible. In several sectors, particularly in the southeast, school transport is suspended by the authorities.
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