“We didn’t expect it to start again so quickly”: residents of Pas-de-Calais were preparing this Wednesday, January 3 to spend the night in shelters, their house being invaded by the water which reached in places the level of historic November floods. Floods also affect six other departments in the north-east of France, classified orange since Tuesday.
The Aa, a coastal river placed on red alert since Tuesday, “is generally at the same level as in November”, when it reached its highest historical level, indicates Vigicrues to the AFP. The levels could still increase “very slightly”, but “we can consider that we are at the peak of this flood”, adds the organization, which evokes an “exceptional flood” on this watercourse. According to the electricity distribution network manager Enedis, more than 10,000 homes are without electricity, 8,500 in Pas-de-Calais and 1,850 in the North.
“It’s a disaster,” says Rachid Ben Amor, mayor of Blendecques, a town crossed by the Aa. Emmanuel Macron, with whom he spoke on the phone on Tuesday, “told him that he would delegate everything necessary”. But “when?” he asks, saying “(expect) more resources from the State”. “These successive floods, “for the patients, it’s going to be terrible,” worries Bertrand Rose, general practitioner in Blendecques. “I have patients who are in a terrible physical, and especially psychological, state.” This town of 5,000 inhabitants, the victims, arriving in bundles with a few belongings in their shopping bags and sometimes their pets, were transferred to a basketball hall where camp beds were set up.
Rainfall in Pas-de-Calais in 2023
© / afp.com/Sylvie HUSSON, Valentina BRESCHI
The Minister of Ecological Transition on site this Thursday
Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition, will travel to Pas-de-Calais this Thursday, January 4, to meet elected officials and victims, the prefecture announced. If only the Aa was classified as red this Wednesday afternoon, 11 rivers in the north-eastern quarter of France are classified as orange, in Pas-de-Calais, but also the North, Aisne , the Ardennes, the Meuse, the Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle.
Everywhere in Hauts-de-France, floods are significant and are spreading to downstream sectors. 74 departmental roads were closed on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m., indicates the prefecture of the northern zone. According to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, more than 50 municipalities are affected in the department and 198 people had to be evacuated. Bottled water distributions are underway, with 2,000 residents deprived of drinking water, adds the prefecture.
Rain often above normal in Pas-de-Calais in 2023
© / afp.com/Sylvie HUSSON, Laurence SAUBADU, Valentin RAKOVSKY
Reinforcements from Europe
Aerial images of Esquerdes, near Blendecques, reveal entire blocks of houses underwater and torrents of muddy water rushing down gardens. “The evolution of the situation will depend on the capacity for evacuation to the sea, but the tidal coefficients are not very good,” worries the mayor of Saint-Omer, François Decoster, calling for “not to walk in the streets flooded because there is current.
Four civil security pumps must be installed in the Mardyck sector (North) on Thursday. Other European pumping means “are being transported from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Netherlands to be operational on Friday”, according to the general directorate of civil security.
Further east, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, rising water levels continue on the Orne, with forecasts indicating a flood level that could exceed the historic level of 2016, according to the prefecture. In Quimperlé, in Finistère, the alert went from orange to yellow on Wednesday afternoon, and the town hall is counting on a return to normal this Wednesday evening.