They put on their rubber boots and waterproof waders again.
They use the boats made available by the municipality to evacuate the belongings they were able to save from the rising waters.
They are the inhabitants of the hundreds of houses flooded in Esbly (Seine-et-Marne) since last weekend.
And they expect the situation to continue for several more days.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the level of the Marne, essentially, rose by several tens of centimeters and water penetrated inside the houses, the gardens of which it had already submerged for several days.
In all, nearly 300 homes were affected, mainly at the level of the paths of L'Île and the Chevaliers de la Gaule, located at the confluence of the Marne and the Grand Morin, its tributary from Coulommiers, in particular.
Disaster victims prepare for long-lasting flood
Among them, Mohamed, who has lived along the Chemin de L'Île for almost thirteen years, pulls a boat made available by the municipality.
“There is nearly a meter of water in my ground floor and I have not had electricity for three days.
I am on trial with my previous insurer and I have still not been compensated for the damage from the floods of 2016 and 2018. For three years, I have wanted to leave this house but I cannot sell it, I am stuck here in suffer from these floods which now occur almost every year.
This is indeed the fourth flood in five years that the town of 6,500 inhabitants has suffered, after those of 2016, 2018 and March 2020.
Like Mohamed, Sylvain and his companion pull a boat which contains some effects that escaped the rising waters.
“We had barely recovered from the 2018 flood when it started again!
We saved what we could.
I work, my parents host us with our three children, it is necessarily complicated.
In my opinion, the water level will not drop immediately and we should not return to our house for a month, ”confides a bit resigned the father of the family.
The decline could indeed be delayed as explained by the mayor of Esbly, Ghislain Delvaux (SE).
"The water level is now stagnant and a very slight decline will begin in the days to come, but next week may be very delicate", predicts the chief magistrate.
Logistics support from the municipality
While waiting, solidarity is organized.
“I hosted my neighbor who is elderly and terrified of water, before evacuating her with a boat.
This Monday, I come in my turn to evacuate our things to go to sleep at the hotel, where only three nights will be taken care of by my insurance ”, says Mohamed.
If there is mutual aid between the victims who find themselves together with their feet in the water, the municipality has provided them with logistical support.
“The municipal gymnasium was made available and two families are accommodated there while waiting to be taken care of by the 115. Concrete blocks had been distributed at the beginning of the rise in water and since then we have also sent water drinking and baguettes of bread to the victims who remained ”, recapitulates the mayor.
This Monday, he received a visit from the sub-prefect of the district of Torcy.
François-Claude Plaisant indeed came to see the extent of the disaster and the damage.
"We are working on the request for recognition of the state of natural disaster which should be granted in the days to come", assured the representative of the State.
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A support that also wishes to affirm the regional council Ile-de-France which assures that it "will not let down the disaster-stricken municipalities: it helped them during the floods of 2016, again in 2018, and will be at their side this once again ”.
The vice-president of the regional council, Hamida Rezeg (LR), will also be there on Tuesday.
Solutions under study to reduce the risk of flooding
The sub-prefect also came to express his solidarity with the disaster victims as well as the firefighters and municipal services, he intends to draw feedback from this fourth flood since 2016.
“We have to think about multiple solutions to reduce the risk of flooding for populations.
We can consider working on the integration of measures such as the ban on living on the ground floor in flood risk prevention plans (PPRI), but this cannot be done overnight because we are talking about people's habitat!
“, Underlines the sub-prefect, which excludes any expropriation or destruction of housing to create possible zones of expansion of floods as is the case in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne).
A measure that the mayor of Esbly does not conceive.
“These increasingly recurring floods may be explained by weather cycles or global warming, but also by the artificialization of soils.
In Esbly, there is unfortunately no land available to create flood expansion zones and it is the dwellings in flood-prone areas that suffer from the expansions.
Some constructions should never have been done in the past, but the ban on living on the ground floor is unthinkable in Esbly in the current state.
It is already morally hard for the inhabitants who experience repeated floods.
We should perhaps review the management of the Der reservoir upstream, ”specifies Ghislain Delvaux, whose home is also concerned.
“A ban would be difficult to accept because when I bought my single-storey house in 2009, I considered doing work to enhance it, but the municipality then replied that if I destroyed it, I could not not rebuild on it, ”adds Sylvain.