two months after the big storms, the victims are still waiting

Two months after the storms of June 2022, the town of Liernais is slowly recovering from the damage caused by the weather. The vast majority of the roofs have not been redone, they are still covered with green tarpaulins. Most of the inhabitants still occupy their house, but some could not return there as the damage was important. The college and the primary and nursery schools, also affected, will open their doors again at the start of the school year. The work was done this summer.

“You have to be patient”

A tide of green tarpaulins: this is certainly what you see if you fly over Liernais by plane. Almost all houses have one on their roof. They were put in emergency around June 22, 2022, and since then have never left. According to Aurélien Fichot, manager of a roofing company, estimates that all the work will last for three years for the entire municipality.

However, the experts went to Christine, an estimate has been made for its roof, its two windows and its broken skylight, but for the moment, nothing has changed : “We are waiting for the work to be done, we have to be patient, in addition there are the holidays, the shortages. We hope that we will have a roof for the winter”. But with the storms returning to Côte-d’Or, Christine is not at ease, she is afraid that the tarpaulin will fly away: “every day we look, as soon as it rains”.

Others can no longer live in their house, like Albane. In addition to the roof, water seeped into its walls, the insulation fell to the ground, the parquet peeled off and all the family belongings took on water: “it went down to the basement”, she adds. Suddenly, with her husband and two children, she lives for the moment in the family house, emptied of furniture since the death of the grandmother: “It’s not easy, because it’s really camping, we put mattresses on the ground”. The family hopes to be able to finish the work before winter, without much hope.

The college is (almost) like new

At the François de la Grange college, the work is almost finished, explains Mathieu Liegault, Deputy Principal of the college: “all the ceilings in the rooms have been redone, only the lights in the toilets remain to be redone”. The craftsmen return at the end of August to finish the electricity, but also to start the roof which must be completely redone. For the moment, the courtyard tiles have been transplanted for the rest of the buildings, to allow the opening of the establishment as soon as possible. Last essential element for the reopening: the school canteen. “We welcome students from the college and from both schools, so it was necessary”, says Mathieu Liegault. A meeting is scheduled for August 26 to validate the reopening.