The situation is not improving in Pas-de-Calais. Affected by historic floods, the department is on red alert this Thursday, with school closures lasting two days in 74 municipalities around Saint-Omer, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Montreuil-sur-Mer. The establishments in the Aa and Liane basins had already been closed on Tuesday.
In a bulletin published shortly after midnight, Météo-France placed Pas-de-Calais on red rain-flood alert from 2 p.m. and the North on orange flood alert, forecasting “heavy showers”.
Christophe Béchu and Gérald Darmanin on site
This rain will affect the Liane, Aa, Hem and Canche basins. In the west of Pas-de-Calais, total rainfall will reach 50 to 70 mm, or even 80 to 90 mm locally in Boulonnais and Montreuillois. “The soils are saturated and the precipitation will run off,” warned Météo-France.
There is “no prospect of recession before at least Friday”, warned the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, on Wednesday from the disaster-stricken town of Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, near Boulogne-sur-Mer. . The state of natural disaster will be triggered during a meeting on November 14 for the affected towns in Pas-de-Calais and the Nord, for his part announced the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who also made the trip to Saint-Etienne-au-Mont.
In Estréelles, in the Canche basin, the town hall indicated that it had called on some of its residents to “evacuate their homes”, for fear that a dike upstream would give way. In nearby Montreuil-sur-Mer, the municipality is ready to welcome disaster victims in a sports hall near the town hall.
Nearly 200,000 people affected
The Canche, the Aa, the Hem and the Liane are experiencing “historic” floods, underlined the prefect Jacques Billant. “Some stations have recorded accumulations of rain which only occur on average once a century,” according to Météo-France. Up to 275 mm of rain in two weeks was recorded in Bainghen, between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Saint-Omer. The floods have affected living areas where nearly 200,000 people live, 5,200 of whom have been without running water since Tuesday evening, according to the prefecture. One person was injured in the knee on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to three minor injuries since Monday in the department.
Before being placed on red flood alert for the first time on Monday afternoon, Pas-de-Calais had already been hit by flooding during storm Ciaran last week. In the space of 30 days, there fell “the equivalent of six months of precipitation”, the last week alone representing “three months of precipitation”, indicated Christophe Béchu.
An orange flood alert also concerns two departments in the west of France, Charente-Maritime and Charente.