“One flood before Christmas, seven floods after. » Leaning on her window, in the front row of the flood of the Loir, the river which crosses Vendôme (Loir-et-Cher), an old lady with clear eyes repeats his saying with a solemn air to the curious who came to photograph the floods that occurred after the heavy rains of the Kirk depression.
Saturday October 12, the department is the last, with Eure-et-Loir, to still be placed on orange flood alert. Brown water covered the roadway of the sub-prefecture, threatening businesses. In rue du Docteur-Faton, the ground of a fast-food restaurant is already flooded. Not far away, the owner of the Wokasie buffet spread pallets on the sidewalk to facilitate access for his customers, before finally having to give up opening his doors.
At 2:30 p.m., the Loir reached its peak at 2.24 m, 1 centimeter from the last big flood of 1995, but far from the record of 2.85 m, reached in 1961, when the Red Cross came to distribute hot meals to residents in canoes. The decline was expected in the evening.
Patients and residents of Ephad evacuated
As a precautionary measure, the approximately one hundred patients in the city’s hospital center and the seventy residents of the Tilleuls nursing home were evacuated on Friday. “As of yesterday, water was seeping through the basements and beginning to penetrate the ground floor of the emergency room”describes Laurent Brillard, the mayor (various right) of the city. “The majority of patients were therefore directed to the André-Gibotteau care center which depends on the hospital. The most critical were taken to the Saint-Cœur clinic and even to the hospitals of Blois and Amboise for some. As for the residents of the nursing home, they are currently in Blois. »
The three-star campsite Au Cœur de Vendôme, on the Grand-Près site, was the most severely affected. This three and a half hectare site is located in a flood zone, on the banks of a river. The thirty mobile homes which housed around thirty seasonal grape harvesters, craftsmen and a few holidaymakers are partly submerged.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Kirk Depression: record precipitation for fall, worsened by climate change
Add to your selections
Three wooden terraces which had broken away to join the river bed were intercepted by fire-divers. “In recent days it had rained so much that the earth was waterlogged. Bringing a crane and trucks to extract the mobile homes before the flood would have been far too dangerous”comments, exhausted, Corinne Bernaud, co-manager of the site for seven years. “All our efforts have vanished. We just collected equipment and furniture”, she said, hoping that the insurer would be understanding.
You have 46.72% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
Related News :