The department’s soils are saturated by two weeks of devastating floods.
“Initiated on all watercourses” Sunday November 19, the clear decline observed for three days in Pas-de-Calais is slowed down by new precipitation. On soils saturated by two weeks of devastating floods, the rains that fell on Sunday in Pas-de-Calais, which “should continue until midday Monday”risk “raise the levels of rivers”warns Vigicrues.
Pas-de-Calais is placed on yellow rain-flood, flood and wind alert until Monday at midday, according to the latest Météo-France bulletin. Vigicrues fears in particular a reaction on the Canche, in the south-west of the department, where “the decline is thwarted by recent rains, always causing localized overflows”.
These new rains come at a time when Pas-de-Calais has been experiencing a slow but saving decline for three days. “We still have water in several areas” around Montreuil-sur-Mer and Saint-Omer, “but the decline is beginning on all the watercourses”the Pas-de-Calais prefecture told AFP on Sunday morning. “The situation is clearly improving”she added.
The Minister of the Economy expected on site Monday afternoon
Vigicrues also forecasts new floods between Sunday evening and Monday morning on the Liane, the Hem and the Aa, some of the rivers most at risk in recent days. It is precisely in the Aa basin that the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, is expected on Monday afternoon, who will meet in Arques then Saint-Omer “local stakeholders and representatives of the insurance sector, in order to accelerate care and support for disaster victims”announced Bercy on Sunday.
The floods, which have left five people injured since November 6, have also affected 6,000 homes, 160 businesses, 130 businesses and 53 farms, according to the prefecture. A regional elected official estimated the number of victims at more than 10,000, a certain number of whom cannot return to their homes.