2023-11-17 20:11:46
Vincent Maquignon wanders in his devastated house. Mud all over the floor, objects placed hastily on the dining room table, traces of dirt on the bay window which overlooks the garden, the kitchen upside down. On the ground, scattered shoes that he hopes to dry, perhaps to save them. The humidity pierces the bones, the smell is strong. In front of his garage, a pile of objects and cut wood, household appliances, broken trinkets. A whole life in pieces.
Also read the report: Article reserved for our subscribers In Pas-de-Calais, after historic floods, mutual aid, fatigue and the hope of a calm
After a first flood of around ten centimeters of water from November 6 to 8, a new wave invaded two days later this entire district located in the lower part of Blendecques, a village of 5,200 inhabitants near Saint-Omer. “The water rose up to four feet in the house”, sighs this team leader at the Voies navigables de France in his forties. He is exhausted, he says he is “arrived at a point of no return. I don’t even want to repair it.”. His employer, who felt he was on the verge of breaking down, gave him a week off.
In this impasse sandwiched between two arms of the Aa, where the oldest experienced the flood of 2002, the damage is considerable. Vincent Maquignon assures us: “We are unprotectable here. We are surrounded by river water and construction equipment cannot pass through to consolidate the banks. Here, no one wants to keep their house anymore but what are they still worth? Who will buy here now? We’re stuck. I am married to my house until I die…”
The Aa in the Salengro district, in Blendecques, on November 17. AIMÉE THIRION FOR “THE WORLD”
During the first wave of floods at the beginning of last week, this Audomarois village held up relatively well, but the second damaged everything in the neighborhoods along the river. More than 400 houses were affected, banks gave way. Residents were evacuated by boat, elderly people were temporarily rehoused in a nursing home, and everyone else did what they could to find a temporary roof until their house became habitable again.
“We have it for months”
Friday morning, in Pas-de-Calais where, between October 16 and November 14, residents suffered the rainiest episode since measurements by Météo France began in 1958, 5,200 people were still suffering from restrictions in drinking water, a situation which is expected to last for several days. More than a hundred homes remained without electricity. And further rain is expected for Saturday evening, while the soils are waterlogged and the rivers are receding too slowly.
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