“We have just finished the house after two years of work.
She was ready to rent, we had a visit last week… The floods, you never think about it.
Usually, it is confined to neighboring streets, ”testifies Tonia Ravand, busy building a makeshift wall in front of her door to limit the infiltration of water.
Saintes, sub-prefecture of Charente-Maritime, must face, like the surrounding municipalities, a historic flood of the Charente river which could reach 6.20 m this Sunday and touch the records of 1982 and 1994, a black year marked by the visit by boat of President François Mitterrand.
READ ALSO>
Climate: floods, floods… why is it raining so much?
More than 2,500 homes could be totally or partially flooded in the city center according to the calculations of UDI mayor Bruno Drapron.
"More than 150 people at risk or with reduced mobility have already been evacuated", specifies the elected official.
Nearly 5,000 Saintais could be relocated if the waters were to rise again and the electricity to be cut.
Firefighters and Civil Security, supported, among others, by the Red Cross, have been increasing the number of interventions using boats since midweek.
92 detainees were transferred
On Friday, 92 detainees from the remand center were transferred to other establishments in New Aquitaine.
The city of Saintes has built makeshift pontoons with concrete blocks and planks to maintain access to homes as long as possible.
" I'm stressing.
It's a baptism of fire… I bought this house a year and a half ago, ”says Nathalie Duris, when the waters have already flooded her cellar and are now licking the threshold of her door.
At 84, Pierrette Falcone hopes to escape an evacuation: “In 82 and 84, it was worse.
But there, it will still go up.
I'm not going to play the balancing act on these boards to get out of my house… ”Mayor Bruno Drapron is already calling for a natural disaster decree.