“That night was impressive, you’re in bed, you don’t know what’s happening and you hear loud noises: the wind, the rain hitting. You’re not reassured…” Erwan, who lives near Saint-Paul (east) on the island of Reunion, experienced the passage of cyclone Belal in “fear”. Results in the early morning: two trees on the ground, uprooted, one of which fell “50 meters” from his car. But no other material damage. “In the end, we were very lucky,” he sums up.
Carol, 40, also calls herself “the luckiest of Reunion Islanders”. Last night, his house held up, despite wind gusts recorded at 150 km/h which made every part of his home vibrate. However, she has experienced cyclones. “I had never been worried but here I was. Already, it was the first time that we were placed on purple alert. And secondly, the gusts were really very impressive. I thought all the windows were going to explode. They had predicted gusts of 250 km/h, I can’t imagine what would have happened if that had been the case. »
“I was scared for the first time”
“I was really scared for the first time and I’m not the only one,” she adds. Her friends, who live in Sainte-Marie (north), suffered more damage. One saw her gate torn down by the storms, the other saw her house flooded by heavy rains.
“I had a very trying experience,” summarizes Lily, a young mother. His 3-year-old daughter spent the weekend with her father, then was sent to her grandparents at his request. “I was very anxious not to be by her side to protect her. »
The night “was very short,” she said. “Impossible to close my eyes” with the rain “falling down” continuously and the gusts of wind. “From 4 a.m., during the night from Sunday to Monday, the weather deteriorated. Then at 7 a.m., he went on a rampage. » Lily watched the storm pass “with fear”. His neighbor’s mango tree threatened to fall on an electricity pole, the street lamps and the stadium fence, located nearby, were on the verge of being blown away. “The noise of the sheet metal, the banging gates… It was long, endless hours,” she describes.
“I had to go out every five minutes to try to maintain the equipment that I had not been able to put away,” she continues. Each time, I came home completely soaked. It was so physically taxing that I no longer felt hungry. »
“It’s as if we saw the cyclone moving”
The lull observed in the morning was short-lived since “the wind picked up, but it was blowing in the other direction”. What Carol also testifies to. “Two hours later, the wind changed, the whirlwind moved back towards the east, it was as if we were seeing the cyclone moving. It was beautiful in a way, but impressive. »
“It started off quite strong,” confirms Erwan. During the passage of the eye, they had warned that it would be quieter, but it was a short passage. So, we barricaded ourselves, we closed the shutters to avoid the risk of projections against the windows. »
Perched on the heights of Saint-Louis, in the southwest of the island, Flavien, 25, believes he got out without too much trouble. The house, which he shares with a roommate, is “solid”, he insists, and sufficiently “far from the sea”. “We are lucky to be sheltered by the mountain so we were not too shaken,” he explains. Certainly, the wind “blowed well” and it “rained continuously” but “it is not the most violent cyclone that we have felt”, underlines the young man. And added: “The situation was different depending on the area in which you live. Here, the damage is limited to branches that have flown away. »
More drinking water
Christine and Patrick, two 71-year-old retirees on vacation for two weeks in Saint-Leu, were also relatively spared. “The most painful thing is the wait before the impact,” they confide. The atmosphere on the island is very particular with successive alerts, people emptying businesses, tidying up everything and barricading themselves. Everything stops. But once the cyclone is here, there is not much we can do. »
As the storm now moves towards Mauritius, Carol says she is “worried”: “It’s the sister island as we call it here. Although there are magnificent hotels, the population does not have many resources. »
At Reunion, patience will be required, she warns. The consumption of water is now prohibited for an indefinite period. “And we won’t risk drinking it right away, once she’s recovered,” she explains, while Lily confides her fear. “We will have to return to work with fear in our stomachs while the riffles are submerged and certain roads are impassable. Not to mention the branches that can still fall. »