The new episode of extraordinary flooding which affected Pas-de-Calais is finally calming down. The red “flood” alert was lifted on Friday morning, according to the Météo-France website and the decline has begun. The department, however, remains on orange “flood” alert, just like the North, the Ardennes and the Meuse.
After the death of a septuagenarian in his submerged car on Wednesday in Loire-Atlantique, firefighters rescued a driver trapped in her vehicle with water halfway through the door on Thursday morning in the Ardennes. She was hospitalized in Sedan, according to firefighters. The Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, promised “exceptional responses” on Thursday during a visit to Pas-de-Calais.
New file for natural disaster?
“In an exceptional situation, exceptional responses,” declared Christophe Béchu who went with government spokesperson Olivier Véran to Thérouanne, a town of 1,200 inhabitants invaded by water for the second time since November.
He raised the possibility of not requesting a new file to classify the municipalities already affected as natural disasters “considering that it is the same episode which is continuing”, while 189 municipalities are affected by these new floods, compared to 282 in november. The soils are still waterlogged after the record rains in the fall.
An emergency fund and the fear of rain
In addition to the emergency fund of 50 million euros announced after two weeks of historic floods which left four people injured and significant damage in November, “we will obviously have to increase our level of support,” he added. The president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), David Lisnard, LR mayor of Cannes, called for “mobilization at the highest level between mayors, presidents of intermunicipalities and the executive”, with a French in four and one in three jobs affected by the risk of rivers overflowing.
On the coastal river Aa, which had been on red alert since Tuesday, “the decline began during the night from Wednesday to Thursday”, according to the monitoring organization Vigicrues. But the current rains “could cause moderate reactions or slow down the current decline”. Late Thursday afternoon, around sixty departmental roads were still cut off by water, particularly around Montreuil-sur-Mer, according to the prefecture. And in Pas-de-Calais, 500 homes remain without electricity and 2,100 residents of access to drinking water, said prefect Jacques Billant.