After the mudslide that caused a death in Aisne, residents write a letter: “we feel abandoned”

On the night of May 1 to 2, 2024, torrential rains fell on the hamlet of Vignolles, in Courmelles (Aisne). A mudslide violently poured over five homes, causing the death of one person and forcing the evacuation of the other residents. Two months later, local residents say they are worried and abandoned.

At the beginning of May, a violent rainy and stormy episode caused runoff and a significant mudslide in Courmelles, south of Soissons. Since then, residents have been frustrated and feel abandoned. They wrote a letter, co-signed by around a hundred people, to try to speed up the procedures.

This initiative was born because “several people were insecure” and had no answers to their questions. “I wrote a purely factual letter today to forward it to all possible elected officials locally, regionally and in the department”explains Romain Svrcek, a resident of the commune.

The goal, for him, is to “bring them all together so that they can work hand in hand and, above all, so that things can move forward”.

The letter states that in 2021, a similar event of a smaller scale occurred. “There were verbal exchanges with local elected officials and nothing changed. Today, we put it back on paper. And in 2024, the entire neighborhood lives in fear and insecurity. So we asks that there be adjustments to the facts so that we can be more serene”he explains.

After 2021, residents thought that such an event would not happen for 10 or 20 years. It is clear that now, it is a “annual or even multi-annual threat”. The topography of the land “we are in a basin, all the water flows out”note Romain Svrcek.

So, how to do ? “I don’t have clear ideas. We have to put that in a design office”. This is why mail is also sent to “consulting design office” to the relevant environmental pole.

For his part, the mayor, Arnaud Svrcek, assures that he did everything to limit the damage with the means at his disposal. For example, “We urgently installed, at the start of the mudslide, large bales of straw with stakes so that the phenomenon would not happen again”.

The day after the disaster, he reported having filed the application for classification as a natural disaster. “I immediately contacted the sub-prefect to organize a meeting in consultation with all the forces concerned by this problem: the president of Grand Soissons, the services of the Prefecture, the Chamber of Agriculture…”

He was offered three dates and he took the closest one. “Everyone freed themselves, we took stock to see what could be done and what could have been done because it was the legitimate question of those administered”. He specifies that it is difficult, as an elected official, to explain that the citizens’ deadline is different from the administrative deadline.

The mudslide originated outside my municipality. I do not have the authority to make changes to an outside municipality because my municipality has only served as a road to evacuate this excess water.

Arnaud Svrcek, Mayor of Courmelles

He and the relevant authorities agreed that a study would be carried out. “We needed weather reports to know the exact amounts of rain”. Because it is the collection of this type of information that will allow specialists to present suitable solutions. “We cannot start creating a basin if it is not a basin that needs to be made”says the councilor.

He declares that he is not “than a speaker without the skills”. However, he tries to create synergy on his scale and to permanently revive the prefecture to “that there is a state of natural disaster. Afterwards, obviously, there is no budget to do it because funds will be needed which will come from different organizations”.

It will also require authorizations that he is not able to have: “these are administrative deadlines, I don’t have control over things”. He nevertheless wants to tell his constituents that he is “at their side” and do “the maximum”especially since having visibility is not easy. “From experience, when you tell someone that you will find solutions in the next month and 6 months later, nothing has been done, they will come and tell us that we are talking nonsense”.

The mayor therefore does not want “To sell dreams” to its inhabitants. “I know that in a surrounding town, having discussed it with the elected official, it took 7 years, I think. That’s not understandable. Then, we have a death, so it could still move things forward.”he concludes.