The respite was short-lived. After 48 hours of calm, the rains should return on Sunday evening in Pas-de-Calais. The department is still flooded and the start of recession observed on Saturday risks being undermined despite the end of the red flood watch in the department on Sunday at 6 a.m.
“At first of low intensity (5 to 10 mm expected Sunday afternoon)”, the precipitation “will gradually intensify (15 to 20 mm expected Monday) and will become more significant during the day on Tuesday (30 mm expected locally over the Liane, Aa and Canche basins), warned the Pas-de-Calais prefecture in a report on Saturday evening.
10,000 victims
The return of bad weather is feared with anxiety by a population at the end of its nerves, which has already suffered from storm Ciaran on November 2, record floods on Tuesday and intense rains on Thursday and Friday. “Psychological support is being put in place,” Fabienne Berquier, president of the Red Cross in Pas-de-Calais, told AFP. “The residents are tired. »
According to the senator and vice-president of the regional council, Franck Dhersin, 10,000 victims have already been identified. There have been four minor injuries since Monday in the department, according to the prefecture. A sixty-year-old woman also died in Bailleul (North) at the wheel of her car, found full of water on Saturday in a flooded ditch, an accident “probably linked to the fact that the road was flooded, that she did not properly given the route”, according to the Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office. But it is “not possible” to establish a link with certainty “before the body examination”.
A decline
Around 250 municipalities have been or are still affected by flooding, sometimes in dramatic conditions, particularly around Saint-Omer, Boulogne and Montreuil, according to the prefecture.
The Aa river returned to orange alert on Sunday at 6 a.m. according to Météo-France, after the Canche, marking the end of the red flood alert in the department, while the Liane appears in yellow. This lull, “expected until Sunday afternoon” made it possible to “observe a decline”, notes the monitoring organization.
Collapsed cliff
But the water, still abundant, continues to affect farms, trap vehicles and has forced many residents to leave their homes. Several evacuations were carried out during the night from Friday to Saturday, notably in Blendecques (85 people evacuated), particularly affected by the floods, and Wavrans-sur-l’Aa (45 people). In La Calotterie, in Montreuillois, Civil Security and firefighters continued on Saturday to evacuate local residents who had until now escaped the floods, noted an AFP journalist. “I have at least 10-15 cm last night. Yesterday (Friday), I had nothing,” laments Charline Groux, evacuated Saturday morning.
Part of the Montreuil citadel, dating from the 16th century, collapsed on Friday, as did a section of the Chemin du Cap Blanc Nez, a cliff located between Wissant and Escalles, on Saturday.
Pumps to limit flooding
According to the prefecture, 800 homes were without electricity on Saturday evening and “5,000 customers were cut off from their mobile telephone service”. Five very large capacity pumps, each capable of emptying an Olympic swimming pool in fifteen minutes, were deployed to try to limit flooding.
Rail traffic is interrupted on two sections (Boulogne-Etaples and Saint-Pol-Etaples) until Tuesday “in the morning”, said the SNCF. A total of 73 roads remained closed on Saturday evening.
A call for donations
The civil protection of Pas-de-Calais has launched a call for donations and set up a number (03 74 20 03 07) “to connect” disaster victims needing help clearing their homes with those ready to help them. More than 50 municipalities have filed a file to be recognized as a natural disaster, a decision expected Tuesday.
Although they constitute natural phenomena, floods, cyclones and droughts can be amplified by global warming generated by human activities. Floods are particularly costly disasters: between 1970 and 2019, they accounted for 44% of all disasters and 31% of economic losses.