A “damage assessment mission” was announced on Saturday by the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, after the flood which affected the town of Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans (Isère), where one hundred isolated people were evacuated by helicopter since Friday.
“The first emergency was shelter, the second is now reconstruction,” the minister declared on BFM TV.
In this sense, he announced “a damage assessment mission” to “very quickly release an emergency fund for local authorities” and allow the start of work “in the coming days”.
Mr. Béchu also assured that the state of natural disaster would be recognized in “around two weeks” for the affected municipality.
From Saturday morning, the decline began in the town where the flood completely cut off the main road of a hamlet and caused the evacuations of its occupants by air, the prefecture told AFP earlier.
“All the people were taken care of and accommodated last night in Deux-Alpes with the help of the town hall,” said a spokesperson for the Isère prefecture.
Four helicopters were engaged for the operation in the town of Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans, where the evacuated hamlet had found itself isolated since the departmental road was cut off on Thursday by a torrential flood from the Vénéon torrent.
According to Mr. Béchu, some “200,000 m3 of water flowed down the Vénéon valley.
“At this time, access to the hamlet by road is still cut off” by the flooding, the same source added, while the department is classified on Saturday under yellow vigilance with 33 other departments according to Météo France.
“A lot of material damage has been noted on homes and roads” and “a diagnosis of the state of the roads will be launched on Saturday, for several days,” the prefecture told AFP on Friday.
Friday evening, orange vigilance was lifted in Savoie and Isère, where torrential floods had hit the Oisans and Ecrins massifs.
In Mayenne, during the day, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, had promised recognition of the state of natural disaster for the municipalities affected by the historic flood of the Oudon, in particular Craon where he visited.
A disturbance arriving Friday evening from Brittany was expected to water a large north-eastern quarter of the country on Saturday morning, as far as Limousin, Poitou-Charentes and Gironde, with possible storms towards Lorraine and the Alsace plain, according to Météo-France forecasts.
