Three people were found dead after the passage of storm Monica and four others were missing and still being sought this Monday, March 11. Six departments are still on orange alert.
Six more departments are placed on orange flood alert this Monday March 11 due to the passage of storm Monica. The depression caused damage and led to the death of three people in Gard on Sunday March 10. The victims were swept away by water while trying to cross submersible bridges. Three people are still missing in the Gard department, a father and his two children aged 4 and 13. The mother was rescued by firefighters and a helicopter flew over the area to try to find the victims. A fourth person is also wanted this Monday in Ardèche. “The people’s vehicles have been found, but not the people as I speak to you,” indicated yesterday the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, from the Operational Center for Interministerial Crisis Management at Place Beauvau.
The search resumed this morning after being paused last night “taking into account the situation of the waterways” explained to AFP the deputy departmental director of the Gard firefighters, Thierry Carret. The system must be “recalibrated according to the drop in watercourses” and the situation remains dangerous again this Monday.
In Charente-Maritime, also placed on orange vigilance, an 80-year-old man was found dead on a beach in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, on the Ile de Ré, on Sunday March 10, according to information from Sud Ouest. The man had been taken care of by firefighters who were flying over the area to monitor high tides. Emergency services were unable to resuscitate him. It would be a fisherman on foot.
Which departments are on orange alert?
Six departments remain on flood orange alert this Monday, March 11: Charente-Maritime, Gironde, Puy-de-Dôme, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Saône-et-Loire and Yonne. But 44 other departments are placed on yellow alert for floods and sometimes for other phenomena, notably for thunderstorms in the south-east or for rain-flooding in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Charente-Martime faces double orange vigilance until 9 a.m. The department is warned of the risk of wave-submersion.
The floods are not yet over, “the levels are rising in the Allier basin” and near Puy-de-Dôme according to the detailed report from Vigicrues. On the Atlantic coast it is the tidal coefficients which “will gradually increase until tomorrow” and pose the risk of overflows. But the decline has begun in the south-east of France and the Cévennes.
Nearly 250 firefighters and 4 gendarmerie helicopters were mobilized overnight from Saturday to Sunday. On site, we are waiting for reinforcements “coming from Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse and Hérault, and a helicopter coming from Lyon”, explained the secretary general of the Gard prefecture who “renews in a strong way messages of caution to the entire population of Gard”.