The results are as uncertain as they are nightmarish. “Certainly several hundred deaths”, or perhaps even “a few thousand” according to the declarations of prefect François-Xavier Bieuville on the Mayotte la 1re channel this Sunday, December 15. The day before, the passage of Cyclone Chido devastated Mayotte, leaving landscapes of desolation in its wake: flooded hospital, torn roofs, shanty towns wiped off the map… The situation is so serious that the assessment would be “impossible to draw up”, indicated At World the resigning Minister of Overseas Territories, François-Noël Buffet: “The extremely significant material damage will probably amount to billions of euros.”
At least around 100,000 people would have neither shelter nor water today. The 101st department, the poorest in France, already weakened by endless health, social and security crises, is more weakened than ever. Priority is now given to the difficult arrival of help. Mobilized from Reunion, the first reinforcements are arriving in the territory. François-Noël Buffet and his resigned Interior counterpart, Bruno Retailleau, landed aboard an A400M this Monday morning in Mayotte. “The State’s reaction was anticipated, with a first meeting of the interministerial crisis unit last week which made it possible to preposition emergency resources, assured François-Noël Buffet to the evening daily. But honestly, no one could predict the strength and exceptional trajectory of the cyclone, which came down from the North to pass right in the middle of the island.” He called for an “interministerial response, of the same type as that provided after cyclone Irma”, which had weighed heavily on Saint-Martin, in the Caribbean. General (2S) Jean-Marc Descoux, responsible for the operational maneuver of the gendarmerie in response to Hurricane Irma in 2017, responsible for implementing the measures planned in the “cyclone plan”, explains to us whether these can be applicable to Mayotte.
L’Express: The scale of the destruction in Mayotte is colossal. Was a natural disaster of this magnitude predictable? ?
Jean-Marc Descoux: This type of disaster unfortunately occurs in the Overseas Territories. Those in the tropical zone, in particular, face a perfectly identified risk. It is so much so that it is the subject of plans and preparation. The State obviously does not discover that Reunion, Mayotte, the Antilles, New Caledonia can suffer cyclones. Already taken into account in the past, these hypotheses are even more so with climate change, which makes them even more likely to recur. State services are preparing for this, in particular through plans and exercises, which are carried out locally to test the devices.
But the problem is that a cyclone is difficult to predict in the long term: approximately four days pass between the moment it is detected and the moment it hits, with real uncertainty about its trajectory, up to forty-eight hours before the events. It is very difficult to predict. The more remote and isolated you are, the more difficult it is to prepare. The public authorities have two choices. First case: it can choose to preposition resources on site to be able to react immediately after the event. There is a disadvantage: that the means present are directly tested by bad weather, resulting in losses of both materials and people. The second possibility, and the most reasonable in my opinion, is the one that was prescribed in 2017: personnel and equipment had been placed nearby – but not in the path of the cyclone –, which were then projected onto the site of the disaster. This is what, in the case of Mayotte, has been done since Reunion.
Is the current situation in Mayotte similar to that experienced in the Caribbean after Irma in 2017?
The adversity factors are much greater in Mayotte than in Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin. Firstly because the volume of population to be supported is enormous. It is much more important than what we faced for Irma. Then, Mayotte is faced with a more significant problem of remoteness. It is much further from the rotation platform, Reunion – the hub which will provide the necessary supplies to the affected territory – than Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy were from Guadeloupe: 1,400 kilometers away to one, 250 kilometers for the other two.
In Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, the population respected the confinement instructions. There was looting when the eye of the storm passed, the lull – there had already been damage to businesses – and after the cyclone passed. But these events were limited. In Mayotte, at present, the population is wandering, because many of their homes have been destroyed. We could talk about the risk of looting – it would probably be more appropriate to emphasize that these are generally people trying to recover their livelihood after a disaster.
What is the role of the gendarmerie in this crisis?
The gendarmerie has its own mission: to ensure public order, deter, arrest criminals and bring them to justice. But in this type of crisis, its first goal is to produce intelligence. Its agents will assess the extent of the damage, identify the needs of the population, and the state of public services. Which ones continue to work, even in degraded mode? The gendarmes must report these elements so that the administrative authority can coordinate all the resources of the State and local authorities. Its mission: to support the airlifts set up by avoiding chaos.
The feedback from Irma, posted on the gendarmerie website, highlights the danger that rumors and disinformation pose in this type of situation. What were the problems you encountered in this area?
After Hurricane Irma, a large volume of false information circulated, first about the number of victims. The Dutch part of the island, which hosts a remand center, was also the subject of rumors that several hundred prisoners had escaped. Health was the victim of all the speculation: it was claimed that a shortage of vital medicines was in progress, which could lead to crowds and even looting of pharmacies. Misinformation is concentrated around particularly anxiety-provoking elements because they are linked to survival: access to drinking water, medicines, food. We must organize distribution points, guard them to avoid disturbances of public order, and communicate the reality to eliminate rumors.
Then, we must centralize the information, locally, by a service dedicated to the prefecture which will collect all the data from all the services. This service must be able to provide both the population and the media with all the information on developments in the situation. Then, means of communication must be reestablished fairly quickly. A lack of information leaves room for all interpretations. There will probably be rumors in Mayotte about the stocks of food products, about those of medicines… Without communication, these rumors will flourish. The best way to avoid such panic is therefore to organize a dedicated unit, which provides regular updates to both the population and the media.
But these two conditions will very quickly encounter difficulties in Mayotte. The further away we are, the more difficult it is to ensure the permanence of operational logistics. We will very quickly have to create an air bridge to support the population in all areas, then allow reconstruction. The question of different networks and infrastructures will again pose difficulties: without rapid recovery, it is impossible to communicate with the population. People need electricity to recharge their devices, but also radio, networks for telephony to work… This is a priority mission. It involves coordinating all operators because unfortunately, when a population is traumatized, all construction sites become targets for looting – think of generators to meet electricity needs, for example. We must therefore group these needs together and return to normal, district by district, treating the most populated areas as a priority.
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