The Pas-de-Calais department has been placed on red flood alert for the Liane river, in the Boulogne-sur-Mer region, due to “very intense rain” on Tuesday November 14 in the afternoon, announced Météo-France, which fears “an episode potentially greater than last week’s floods”. “The very intense rains this afternoon led to a very rapid reaction upstream of the section,” notes Météo-France, while the other rivers in the department remain on orange alert.
In addition to Pas-de-Calais, the neighboring department of Nord is placed on flood orange vigilance on Tuesday, as well as six other departments in the rest of the territory: Charente-Maritime, Doubs, Jura, Nord, Vosges and Vendee. Haute-Savoie and Savoie are placed on orange rain-flood vigilance.
Earlier in the day, Emmanuel Macron was traveling in the Hauts-de-France department. “To cope with the first expenses” in the affected municipalities, the Head of State, arriving at the end of the morning in Saint-Omer, announced that an emergency support fund of 50 million euros for affected communities has been put in place and that “the classification of all municipalities which have requested it as a natural disaster” will be effective from this Wednesday afternoon.
5,000 homes affected
This represents 244 municipalities in total, including 214 in Pas-de-Calais and around “thirty” in the North, and this classification is a first step towards compensation for victims affected by storm Ciaran on November 2, by floods record on November 7 and intense precipitation on Thursday 9 and Friday 10. Insurance companies are committed to being “very responsive,” he said.
According to the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, 5,000 homes have been affected by these “exceptional” floods and “1,400 people evacuated” since November 6. The toll remains “four lightly injured”. “The next few hours will be complicated because it will continue to fall,” the president warned. The “recession phase will take several days”. In this context, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture decided, as on Monday, to keep nurseries and educational establishments closed on Tuesday in 279 municipalities in the department, or 388 establishments in total.
The Head of State announced that he had entrusted the mayor of Saint-Omer with a mission to improve the evacuation to the sea of ??the waterways most at risk, drawing inspiration in particular from the Netherlands. An “exceptional support fund” for farmers, including those in Brittany and Normandy, affected by the storms will be launched, added Emmanuel Macron.
More than 10,000 victims
During this trip, accompanied by his wife, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, as well as the Minister for SMEs, Olivia Grégoire, Mr. Macron thanked the teams of relief as well as the police and elected officials mobilized “since the start of the floods and storm Ciaran”. He also expressed his support for all the victims.
On Monday, Matignon had already announced the convening of an interministerial crisis unit “to coordinate all state services”. According to the senator and vice-president of the regional council, Franck Dhersin, more than ten thousand victims have already been identified. “Many artisans, traders and SMEs are affected,” he underlined on Monday.
The floods of recent days have also caused significant damage in the neighboring department of the North, particularly in the Lys plain. “How are they going to eliminate all of this? », asked Annie Bacrot, who lives along this river in Merville, on Monday afternoon, and whose garden is entirely underwater. “It’s stressful, we’re afraid of having to leave, we’ve never experienced that,” she noted with a sigh.
