After the Gironde in the middle of the morning, the neighboring department of Landes is no longer on the red alert, Monday, May 11. The two departments of the Atlantic coast had been placed on maximum alert during the night of Sunday to Monday due to exceptional rains which resulted in hundreds of interventions by firefighters without causing casualties.
According to La Chaîne Météo * , “ the weather episode is gradually coming to an end. Precipitation is gradually becoming scarce over all the departments concerned. This development is fairly rapid in New Aquitaine, but more gradual in Occitania and in the Grand Est. "
The second rainy axis that stretches from Vendée, in the Center to Burgundy and to the Northeast loses its activity in its western part. Rainfall has stopped over the Île-de-France region, Paris and its inner suburbs, Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines (78) and Essonne (91) are no longer placed on orange alert, as is Vendée and Charente-Maritime. From now on, 18 departments are placed in orange vigilance, against 26 in the middle of the morning.
The rainy event will continue for the next few hours, with a main activity in the south of the Landes around the Pyrenees and in the southwest of the Massif Central, with the rains lingering over this latter sector. In Gironde, firefighters carried out more than 500 interventions in 136 municipalities, most of them concerning flooded premises, said the prefecture. Some 46 people were put in safety following the rising waters but " no casualties are to be deplored, " she said in a statement.
In the south of the department, the village of Origne found itself " under 30 to 40 centimeters of water, never seen before, " Mayor Vincent Dedieu told AFP. “ We started with a storm of very large hailstones then two hours of very heavy non-stop rain. It was not the streams that overflowed, it was the abundance of water that poured into the village. We thought we'd only see it on TV, not here, ”he told AFP.
A total of 89 departmental roads are impacted on the secondary network, of which 21 are currently blocked by falling trees or overflowing water, while in the neighboring Landes, 30 roads are blocked and 12 under surveillance. In Charente-Maritime, firefighters received 200 calls in a few hours and made 118 interventions.
* The Weather Channel is a Figaro group company
