Rentals-France Newsletter December 1 1999. Number 13

1. The flooding in the south of France
2. Photo Tip
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1. THE FLOODING IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

I have delayed this newsletter and waited until I had a clearer picture of the severe flooding which hit a large area near us last month. I print a report sent to me by a recent contributor to this newsletter, Veronica Yuill, Veronica lives in the center of the area worst affected and she has paid me the compliment of sharing her private newsletter with me and allowed me to publish some of it here.

In our village of Nizas, less than an hour from Veronica's area we had a stormy night but we had no idea of the problems of our neighbors until we saw the news on TV.

Here is Veronica's story.

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It all started with the weather forecast of Thursday 11 November warning of exceptionally heavy rain around the Mediterranean coast. Friday started out clear, but by late morning it had clouded over and started to rain heavily. We had several power cuts and eventually the power went off around lunchtime so I decided I might as well go to the supermarket and get some supplies in, in case the weather got worse. By then the roads were covered in an inch or so of water and it was still raining very heavily. Still, this didn't seem exceptional -- we often get rain of this intensity at this time of year, but normally it lasts for a few hours at the most. This time it persisted with incredible violence all night. On Saturday we were still without power, and now no phone either, and it was still raining, hard. As we couldn't watch the TV or use the phone we had no idea what was happening elsewhere. At around 4 pm. it stopped raining and the sky cleared somewhat; we were so bored with hanging around wrapped in blankets and trying to read in the dim light filtering through the windows that we decided to go out to investigate. The car wouldn't start (too wet), so we decided to walk down to the garden, which is outside the village and about 30m lower.

As we reached the outskirts of the village I noticed a vague rumbling sound -- a bit like the background traffic noise you get in cities. "Do you think that's the river?" I mused idly. We reached the brow of the hill and all was revealed -- a vast sheet of water covering the whole valley. Normally the river is such a pathetic trickle that it is invisible and inaudible from here. We were able to identify the location of our garden by means of a distinctive tree. Scrambling down the track, which was now occupied by heaps of debris and trees which had slid off the hillside next to it, we managed to get into the garden -- or rather swimming pool. The flood had obviously subsided from its maximum, but we could see from the debris that it had reached the roof of the shed, i.e. a depth of about 2 meters. Amazingly, the shed was undamaged, with not even a roof tile out of place -- although obviously the contents were covered in mud. The rest of the garden was simply a sheet of water. However, the surrounding banks of reeds, and the large poplar trees at one side, had broken the force of the water, preventing too much damage.

As we returned home, it started to rain again, and continued until late that evening. We still had no power, but we spent a very jolly evening with our neighbor Michel, sitting around a candle-strewn table grilling chops and sausages over his open fire, baking potatoes in the ashes, and washing it all down with plenty of wine. By then we had grasped that something exceptional had happened, but we had no idea of the sheer scale of it.

Sunday, thankfully, dawned clear and bright, and still powerless and phoneless. Camplong had suffered little damage -- a couple of collapsed garden walls, and a flood in the cave cooperative. The newspaper delivery had made it this morning, and for the first time we realized just how bad the situation was elsewhere. The paper reported that in 24 hours, 500mm of rain (about 20 inches, for my US readers) had fallen. To put this in perspective, our normal *annual* rainfall is around 650mm!

We managed to get the car started and set off to Villedaigne. Arriving there, we were met by scenes of utter devastation. Every single house in the village bar one or two had been flooded and the streets were littered with overturned cars, shattered furniture and household objects covered in mud. In fact there was a remarkably large amount of furniture ... this was because there is a large store in Villedaigne which sells that massive ugly furniture so beloved by the French. Most of this had made its exit via the plate glass windows and distributed itself liberally about the village. Closer to the river, great slabs of tarmac had been lifted off the road by the force of the water and scattered about like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, making the village inaccessible from Narbonne. We were to hear later that several motorists had spent the night clinging to trees here, while others had been swept away by the torrent and drowned.

In Lezignan the next day to make phone calls (we had power by then but still no phone), the devastation seemed even more all-encompassing. In fact it looked like a war zone, an impression heightened by the lorry-loads of troops brought in to help with the cleaning up. Great holes in the roads, overturned cars, iron railings ripped from their sockets, windows smashed, heaps of debris everywhere. The streets were buzzing with France Telecom and electricity repair vans, and breakdown lorries laden with battered, mud-covered cars. Desperate-looking people were shovelling debris out of their houses and shops. The post office and the telephone exchange were among the worst hit; France Telecom had to bring in a mobile exchange and satellite equipment to get things working again while they got started on what will be weeks of repair work.

In the supermarket conversation was somewhat more lively as shoppers strove to outdo each other in an inverted form of one-upmanship. "I had 1m70 of water in my kitchen" -- "So? I had 1m80 in mine!" Morale seemed surprisingly high nonetheless. It was touching how many people, when interviewed on TV in their devastated homes, said modestly, "Oh, but there are lots of other people much worse off than me."

The final toll in the Aude is at least 25 dead with one person still missing. Some people had very narrow escapes, struggling out of cars swept away by the current and spending the night clinging to trees or telephone poles until they were rescued by helicopter. It's still hard to grasp the sheer scale of the material damage. Sixteen or so bridges were swept away, and many roads crumbled into rivers. In one village the cave cooperative was completely destroyed, with huge stainless steel wine vats 15 feet high swept away by the current and wreaking havoc on the way. In Durban-Corbi res, every single business has been put out of action. At Luc-sur-Orbieu one very well-respected vigneron who makes wonderful wine had, after the last floods in 1996, fitted an extra-strong hydraulic door to his winery. The door held this time, but ... the walls fell down. All his brand-new equipment was wrecked.

Demoralising though the situation is, most people seem to be determined to keep their heads up and get started on reconstruction. After visits from the President and the prime minister, the government has promised large sums of money, and the area is also swarming with volunteer workers. Villages which were less affected (like Camplong) are having whip-rounds, or sending working parties to help clear up. It's certain that it will take months or even years to get things back to normal again. So please do your bit, and buy Corbieres wine when you can!

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Veronica Yuill is a writer and programmer, and Webmaster of Corbieres Web http://www.corbieresweb.com/ a site dedicated to

this beautiful wine-growing region in the South of France. You can contact her at mailto:veronicay@archetype-it.com
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2. PHOTO TIP

Turn the camera sideways. Most people are taller than they are wide, so take the photo that way when you take a full length shot of someone or even for a portrait. It doesn't work with a video camera though!!