In Pas-de-Calais, new floods with the return of rain

The return of rain swells the rivers again on Monday in the Pas-de-Calais, which has been hit by repeated flooding for two weeks, where Minister Bruno Le Maire announced that he would take charge of the rehousing for six months. The Pas-de-Calais went back to orange on Monday for flooding, with Vigicrues indicating that "the rainfall on Monday caused the level of rivers to rise again", with the risk of new "damaging overflows".

"My parents' house has been under water for 10 days, all the sheds, all the greenhouses are under water," said Sylvain Dewalle, a farmer in Saint-Omer. He saved his animals but lost several hectares of vegetables, drowned: "lamb's lettuce, leeks... ».

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, who called on insurers not to "nitpick", announced that the costs of rehousing "several thousand" of affected victims would be "borne by the State and insurers" for six months, starting at the end of November. This coverage will apply "retroactively in order to cover the floods of the last few days," Bercy said. Bruno Le Maire also promised that all insurance appraisals would be carried out by 4 December, for individuals and companies alike, recalling that the latter will be able to "benefit from partial activity" and "deferrals of social or tax contributions".

The floods, which have injured five people since November 6, have also affected 6,000 homes, 160 shops, 130 businesses and 53 farms, according to the prefecture. On Monday, the department voted for an aid, common with the region, of 380 euros per household to cover the insurance deductible for the inhabitants of municipalities classified as natural disasters.

"Still 30 cm of water"

After two weeks of record rainfall that led to a series of historic floods, the weekend's lull triggered a receding and allowed the Red Cross to close its emergency shelters. If Monday's rainy episode is "not at all exceptional", according to Météo France, the soils still waterlogged make the waterways very sensitive.

"Damaging overflows" - but of lesser importance than those of the last two weeks - are expected from the end of the evening on Monday, particularly on the Hem and Aa and then on the Canche, three of the six rivers on orange alert, Vigicrues told AFP.

"We still have 30 centimetres of water everywhere, it's gone down but it's still there, and the last 30 centimetres, I think we're going to take a long time to lose them," said Ulysse Toulet, a baker in Montreuil-sur-Mer, whose shop, bakery and home were invaded by 1.20 metres of water at the height of the floods. "There's another week of rain coming down," he sighs, waiting for his insurance adjuster.

To facilitate the evacuation of water to the sea, two Dutch pumps with a capacity of 5,000 m3 / h are being installed near Dunkirk (North), said the prefecture of Hauts-de-France on X (ex-Twitter). New pumps had already been installed on Sunday, "to reach the unprecedented capacity of 100,000 m3/hour", Gérald Darmanin had announced, also on X.

A total of 181 municipalities in Pas-de-Calais and 24 in the Nord have already been recognised as being in a state of natural disaster. A new natural disaster acknowledgment meeting is scheduled for this week.

Although they are natural phenomena, floods, cyclones and droughts can be amplified by global warming generated by human activities.