France recovers from worst storms in 40 years

Exceptional rains, floods never seen before and almost all France on red watch, when a climatic phenomenon known as “the Cevennal sea” advanced over the country between Thursday and this Friday. A man died in Paris when he was crushed by a tree in the storm. He was with his family, in the 19th neighborhood.

Five departments in the southern half remain under orange surveillance, Météo France indicated after the “exceptional” rains that fell on Thursday in central-eastern and southeastern France.

The orange “flood” watch was still in force this Friday afternoon in five departments (Loire, Bouches-du-Rhône, Gard, Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

“The Cevennes episode is over. Some showers are still possible, but not comparable to the rainy episode of the last two days,” the organization stated in its 6 a.m. bulletin.

More than a thousand people were evacuated and dozens rescued by helicopter after the “extraordinary” rains.

The rains, which reached between 600 and 700 mm in certain areas of the Ardèche, caused three slightly injured in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Rhône-Alpes.

Raging rivers, roads and towns under Water was part of this climatic phenomenon of singular violence.

In the town of Annonay, in Ardèche, crossed by two rivers, lThe waters rose suddenly in the morningwhen the Ternay dam, to the north, overflowed. It seemed like a tidal wave.

“In ten minutes there was water everywhere,” says Patricia Montagne, who lives in the city center. “It began to make waves and the waterspouts began to arrive,” carrying “astonishing amounts of wood.”

The center was closed to traffic, schools were evacuated and people were rescued by firefighters, sometimes by helicopter.

The stage was repeated throughout the departmentwhere all schools remained closed on Friday, But also along the Gier river, which flows into the Rhône and the Loire.

In Givors, south of Lyon, “the sidewalks are invisible, the water is knee-deep,” describes Samuel Barataud, 25, a salesman in a shop located near this tributary of the Rhône, who got out of bed.

emergency services evacuated 180 residents of the Cornets district, located near a damaged dam, and another 463 in a commercial area. Two reception centers have been opened in the neighboring city of Grigny and around fifty students and teachers spent the night in a secondary school in the city, according to the prefecture.

In the Loire, where two bridges have already collapsed, the prefecture estimates that “the situation will continue to deteriorate” in the coming hours.

The Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, expected in Loire and Ardèche on Friday, He spoke of a situation “unprecedented in its magnitude.” About 600 mm of water in the Ardèche is something unprecedented in memory and he linked “these episodes to climate change.”

SNCF traffic remains very disturbed. These devastating downpours caused major disruptions to power grids, with a thousand homes without power on Thursday afternoon, and to transportation.

Several departmental and national highways are closed, due to flooding or landslides, as does the A47 motorway between Lyon and Saint-Étienne.

It is also suspended rail traffic between the two citiesas well as on several lines northeast of Toulouse. Trains between Les Arcs, Cannes, Nice, Monaco and Ventimiglia in Italy have no longer run since 5.30pm on Thursday, SNCF said.

Due to rising waters, nearly 900 people had to be evacuated in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Rhône-Alpes, according to the regional prefecture.

In Pont-Saint-Esprit, in Gard, a hundred households located on the banks of the Rhône, whose levels are rising rapidly, also had to abandon their homes. Céline Laurent, a 38-year-old mother, was taking refuge in the town hall with her three children. “Let’s sleep here until everything calms down,” he told AFP.

“In the memory of the Annones, we had never seen this. This Thursday, October 17, the Deûme, a river covered by the road that crosses the Avenue de l’Europe, in the heart of this city in the north of Ardèche, suddenly overflowed its banks, causing impressive damage.”

“Annonay (Ardèche) is a basin,” explains Bruno, who watched desperately how the waters They came up from the balcony of their apartmentlocated at the top of the city. “It rained a lot in the Pilat massif and it went down to Annonay,” says the retiree.

Upon leaving its underground channel, The river flooded the main commercial artery of the city during more than a kilometer. The water, and the mud that accompanies it, has infiltrated everywhere: in the entrances of buildings, in underground parking lots, in small businesses, in the nursing home, in the shopping center.

“Happened very very fast in the citylike a big wave,” says Nicole, still in shock. Given the urgency of the situation, the Annonay town council was able to do what was necessary, before 9 a.m., evacuating all the businesses and buildings in the city center just in time, just before the waters rose.

“Without this crucial intervention, the consequences could have been dramatic,” said one firefighter.

At the other end of the Pilat regional park, water from the massifs also caused the Gier to overflow, flooding the A47 motorway and several neighborhoods in Givors (Rhône).

“It happened right at river level. In the future, we will certainly have to ask ourselves the right questions,” he warns.

“With global warming, these types of rainy events are likely to occur more frequently. It is absolutely necessary that authorities find solutions to keep the population safe. We cannot live in Annonay in fear of flooding,” said Jean, who lives in the town.