After two days of bad weather and flooding, “The Cévennes episode is over”Météo-France announces, on Friday, October 18, in its latest bulletin. There are no longer departments on red alert on Friday morning due to the risk of flooding or flooding; Eighteen departments in the south of France are still affected by the orange surveillance. “Some showers are still possible, but not comparable to the rainy episode of the last two days”the organization said.
orange watch for floods is in force on Friday morning in nine departments (Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Haute-Loire, Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Gard, Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques), while that of The floods affect ten departments (Dordogne, Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Ariège, Hautes-Pyrénées and Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
More than a thousand people evacuated and dozens rescued by helicopter in the rains “exceptional” which fell on Thursday in the center-east and southeast of the country. The rains, which reached up to 700 millimeters in certain areas of the Ardèche, caused three minor injuries in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. In the town of Annonay, crossed by two rivers, the waters rose suddenly in the morning when the Ternay dam, to the north, overflowed. The city center was closed to traffic, schools were evacuated and firefighters, sometimes by helicopter, rescued people.
Evacuations, road closures and suspension of rail traffic
The situation was repeated throughout the department, where all schools will remain closed on Friday, but also along the Gier, a river that flows in the departments of Rhône and Loire. In Givors, south of Lyon, emergency services evacuated 180 residents from the Cornets neighborhood, located near a damaged dam, and another 463 from a commercial area. Two reception centers were opened in the neighboring city of Grigny and around fifty students and teachers spent the night at a local secondary school, according to the prefecture.
In the Loire, where two bridges have already collapsed, the prefecture estimates that “the situation will continue to deteriorate” these next few hours. The Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, expected in Loire and Ardèche on Friday, spoke of a situation “unprecedented in its scale; “600 millimeters of water in the Ardèche is something unheard of in living memory.” and linked “These episodes of climate change”.
These downpours caused significant disruptions to electrical networks, with a thousand homes without electricity on Thursday afternoon, and to transportation. Several departmental and national roads are closed due to flooding or landslides, as is the A47 motorway between Lyon and Saint-Etienne. Rail traffic between the two cities was also suspended, as well as on several lines northeast of Toulouse. Trains between Les Arcs, Cannes, Nice, Monaco and Ventimiglia (in Italy) no longer run since 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, SNCF reported.
According to the regional prefecture, due to rising water levels, nearly 900 people had to be evacuated in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. In Pont-Saint-Esprit, in Gard, a hundred households located on the banks of the Rhône, whose levels are rising rapidly, have also had to abandon their homes. In the Alpes-Maritimes, where 1,050 firefighters were mobilized, about 70 people left their homes as a precaution, mainly in Saint-Martin-Vésubie. Campsites located in flood-prone areas were also evacuated. In Haute-Loire, in Chambon-sur-Lignon, schools were also evacuated, some houses were flooded and livestock were swept away, said the mayor, Jean-Michel Eyraud. In Béziers, in Hérault, lightning struck the roof of the music conservatory and caused it to collapse. The 60 students present were taken to safety, the prefecture says.
