On Wednesday morning, 23 departments are still on orange alert for floods, disrupting many cities. In Alsace, a woman drowned.
The Floods on Wednesday still threaten a part of France. 23 departments are still in orange alert : the levels of some rivers like the Seine continue to rise dangerously, depriving Paris and its suburban RER C. It could reach or slightly exceed by the end of the week the peak of 6.10 m in 2016, depending on rainfall, according to various state departments. Tuesday noon, the level was measured at 4.90 m at the Austerlitz Bridge.
“In Paris, we do not expect significant consequences outside the banks, the consequences should be the same in 2016,” commented Jérôme Goellner However, head of state services in charge of the Environment in the region (DRIEE).
Calls for caution
“The water rises upstream of the Marne, then it starts to go down, and joined the Seine,” says Dolmiere.
“Significant excesses” were also underway Tuesday in particular upstream of the Marne and the Yonne, according Vigicrues that scans 22,000 km of rivers – complex operation conducted by “scales on” the most famous bridge of Austerlitz installed.
“The situation is serious but there is no need to unduly anxious today,” said Tuesday the Secretary of State Ecological Transition Poirson Brown, while his colleague Sébastien Lecornu called for “prudence “.
Like the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who met on Tuesday the “crisis cell” of the City, with the operators concerned (Enedis, GrDF, Eau de Paris, RATP, SNCF, etc.). “We remain extremely vigilant,” she said.
“It is especially upstream” and the downstream consequences may be more damaging, similar to 2016, according to Jean-Marc Dolmiere, deputy director of the monitoring body of water Vigicrues course.
At the root of this situation, the rainfall in the upstream of the Paris basin, the Yonne, the Marne, on already saturated soils.
Lull rainfall
The Louvre, Orsay, which as in 2016 has had to put its reserves at the shelter, said he was “very vigilant”: “We déclenchons our flood risk prevention plan when the Seine reached 5.08 m.”
The “lull” of precipitation allows the early flood recession on the upstream parts of rivers, but the flood peaks “continue to spread to the downstream parts,” said Vigicrues which provides many rivers overflowing from the north and eastern in the coming days.
A raw “moderate” is being on the Rhone downstream of Lyon. In the Northeast, “levels remain high in many rivers, especially on the Maas and the Rhine.”
A woman killed in Bas-Rhin
In the East, the flood peak of the Rhine “was reached at 18:00,” said the prefecture of Bas-Rhin, who stressed that the decision to complete a 600 ha polder had “done its work by stopping the flood” . A Molsheim, a 60 year old woman was found drowned in the river Bruche . According to France Bleu Alsace , she would have slipped on the bank wanting to watch the river in flood.
“The decline starts slowly, even if the water levels are still very high,” she added.
Navigation on the river, arrested Tuesday was able to return to “some very minor sections below, but conditions remain difficult for navigation,” she said.
In red alert Monday after overflow of rivers Loue and Doubs Montbéliard reached its flood peak. This should also be the case in Besancon at night.
In the Jura, because of flooding fears and “some landslides,” the school bus will not run in twelve municipalities in the department Wednesday when schools and colleges will be closed.
