(Neuville-sous-Montreuil) The decline seems to have started on Thursday in Pas-de-Calais, where several rivers have stabilized “at a relatively low level”, but the announcement of further rain at the end of the day still calls for caution .
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne went Thursday morning to the bedside of the victims of Neuville-sous-Montreuil, a town located near the Canche, a river still on flood orange vigilance.
“We are here in an emergency, but obviously we will be there for the restoration,” she promised, before being questioned by a baker, Ulysse Toulet, whose business in the neighboring town of Montreuil-sur-Mer was ravaged.
“I have no income, I was already having difficulty coping with the energy crisis and today my work tool is under 1.20 meters of water, my home is under 1.20 meters of water. water, my shop, my office, I have nothing left, I have lost everything, I am over-indebted, I am in an extremely precarious personal situation and I have nothing,” said the baker.
“We will find a solution both to overcome the emergency and to restore your business,” the minister assured him.
“Exhausted”
In this town of 650 inhabitants, Jacqueline Fievez comes every day to see the damage in her house. “In the kitchen there was about 1.20 meters and in the garden more than two meters, I had to evacuate on the third day,” she says fatalistically, still wading through 80 centimeters of water.
“The aftermath is going to be very complicated. People are tired, exhausted, psychologically, physically, morally,” says Gwenaëlle Loire, mayor of Saint-Léonard, about fifty kilometers away.
“We are recognized as a natural disaster, but now the State will have to give us the means, because I think that houses will be declared unsanitary by the experts, so people will no longer be able to live in their houses,” underlines- she asked, worrying about the permanent departure of certain residents.
Although the damage promises to be major, the human toll remains at four injured since November 6, according to the prefecture.
A lull on Wednesday allowed a decline in several basins in the department according to Vigicrues: only two rivers, the Canche and the Lys plain, remain on orange alert, still causing “damaging overflows”. The North, Charente-Maritime and Vendée are also on orange alert for floods.
But a depression, called Frederico, is circulating on Thursday “over the north of the country on a Brittany/Alsace axis”. This is accompanied by “an increase in wind, but also an increase in precipitation, particularly in the north-east of the country”, which calls for caution, according to the latest Météo-France bulletin.
“No more heating”
After middle and high schools which gradually reopened on Wednesday, most of the 1,290 schools closed since Monday will reopen on Thursday, the prefecture announced. However, 21 schools will not be able to accommodate students and school transport remains very disrupted.
The drinking water supply is still subject to restrictions for 7,200 people in the Samer sector, a situation which is expected to last until the middle of next week, specifies the same source, adding that more than 500 homes are deprived of electricity and more than 4,000 private cell phone subscribers.
For the departmental president of the Red Cross, Fabienne Berquier, “the main challenge now consists of finding lasting rehousing solutions for disaster victims who will not be able to return home”, in houses where there is “humidity up to 1.60 m, no more heating or electricity.”
Since November 6, around 1,400 people have been evacuated because of these floods, exceptional in their duration and intensity.
Although they constitute natural phenomena, floods, cyclones and droughts can be amplified by global warming generated by human activities.