“Some have been there for generations. I was born there in 1989. It is a place very dear to our hearts and we are going to fight”. For the Pra, Camille Grenier and his family are ready to organize the “resistance”. In the Tinée valley, in the depths of the Alpes-Maritimes, this hamlet of around ten buildings with church, bread oven and laundry, attached to the town of Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage, is set to disappear.
Since the publication of a municipal decree on August 17, it is forbidden to “evolve” and “live” there. For the authorities, two years after the storm Alex, which had raged in the department, causing the death of eighteen people, the place became too dangerous.
Threatened by flooding from the Salso Moreno, which borders the hamlet to the west, and rockfalls from the slope overlooking it to the east, the Pra is exposed to “natural risks […] now recurrent”, supports the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes. He must be evacuated. For their part, the owners of the houses, who live there only part of the year, have no intention of leaving them. For them, the storm Alex would have precipitated everything and “the State seeks at all costs to minimize the risks”. They assure that inexpensive works would make it possible to protect them. After the creation of an Association for the preservation of the Pra, at the beginning of September, they will launch, on Monday, a petition.
“There is no efficient parry or protection”
For its diagnosis, the prefecture says it relies on “recent studies”, which have “confirmed the vulnerability of the hamlet to the risks of flooding, torrential floods and landslides”. She recalls that “two blocks of 3 and 4 m3, rolled down the slope, including one to the road, near the hamlet” one night in April, that three vehicles were swept away by flows on August 17 and that the Bonette road, which runs along the Pra, had also been cut following a storm on the evening of August 18. “There is no efficient parade or protection”, assure the services of the State.
“We are told that the only alternative is the Barnier fund [qui permet de financer les indemnités d’expropriation de biens exposés à un risque naturel majeur] whereas it would suffice to create a dyke on the watercourse. For 200,000 euros, we would be protected, believes on the contrary Benoît Grenier, Camille’s father and the owner of the restaurant Le Pratois, an institution in the sector. This is nothing compared to the tens of millions that have been invested elsewhere in the valleys after Storm Alex. »
“I am very afraid that it could create a precedent and that other small municipalities will be sacrificed”
The Salso Moreno, which had already caused major flooding in past centuries, would not be the major risk, according to the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis, which has jurisdiction. “It would be useless to intervene on the river, a study by the RTM (Restoration of land in the mountains) has clearly proven it. The problem comes from the landslide. The work would be too important to carry out and not sustainable due to the rapid evolution of the slope, ”says the community.
A diagnosis which the owners are unable to resolve, despite a consultation meeting held a few days ago. “It’s not just a question of a dozen individual destinies. We are mobilizing for our hamlet but not only, explains Camille Grenier again. Me, I’m very afraid that it could create a precedent and that other small towns will be sacrificed, as soon as there is a little too much risk and there is no political will to preserve them. »