25 years after the deadly floods of November 1999: at Château Gléon, the Berre river pulverized the bridge, “only the keystones remained”

Château Gléon, located in Portel along the Berre, did not resist the fury of the river. Philippe Montanié has images engraved in his memory: “Around 3 a.m., the water rose 10 meters high to the second floor, propelled by the breath through all the pipes, it passed through the sinks, the washbasins, the bathtubs…”

The basement gates were blown out. “Inside, everything was stagnating. In the wine cellar, 200 barrels were lost, carried away by the waves, we lost equipment, dry materials, machines, a straddle, a processing cell… The whole workshop was ransacked. Even today, we find silt in the cellar.

The valley transformed into a torrent

The bridge was destroyed: “Only the keystones remained… To leave we had to take the old royal road to Spain and pass through Sigean. We used an old quarry to be able to temporarily consolidate the bridge before the definitive reconstruction, which took a long time later”.

The whole valley was transformed into a torrent. “I, who never experienced war, imagined a landscape like that: everything was gray, ruins as far as the eye could see. There was everything in the vineyards, vehicles, cans of phytosanitary products, we even found a barrel of muscat from Cascastel!“

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In the vineyard, the plots along the river were ransacked. “We cleaned, brought in soil, and replanted, we abandoned the old aramon to replace it with cot and the cinsault with syrah… The SMMAR recently cleaned the river, and we even found buried electrical cables! “

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Today, 25 years later, he greets all those who came to lend them a helping hand, including winegrowers from Vaison-la-Romaine, shepherds from Aveyron and the Champenois who arrived by bus, providing precious help both physically and than morality. “The shepherds said that in 1976, there had been such a heatwave that the animals were threatened. They were saved thanks to the fodder trucks arriving from the South. They told me: it saved our herds, so now , we help!”

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At Château Gléon, a plaque on the bridge, in thanks to all these magnificent volunteers. “In the peasant world, solidarity affects all generations!”