850,000 homeless if Paris flooded
Report says repeat of 100-year flood would affect up to five million and disrupt one-third of France’s economy
AROUND 430,000 households in Ile-de-France could be threatened if the “100-year flood” like that of 1910 hits Paris. It could mean 850,000 people left homeless.
The Seine rose 8.68 metres in the 1910 flood and left the capital paralysed for months but today’s city is much more dependent on underground transport and cable networks for power, TV and internet.
A report published one week after a major simulation exercise in Paris said 8% of properties in Ile-de-France would be directly affected, with the Val-de-Marne and Hauts-de-Seine seeing homes lost to flooding from the Seine and Marne rivers. In all, 850,000 people would be left homeless.
Paris has been strengthening its flood defences to stave off the worst effects of waters which would rise over the Pont de l’Alma and reach up to the entrance of Gare Saint-Lazare, 1,500m away.
But the Institut d'Aménagement et d'Urbanisme, which prepared the report, said the new defences could make a difference for the capital but the rest of Greater Paris would be much more vulnerable. It said the Ile-de-France and its 12 million inhabitants were not well enough prepared for such an event – and it pointed the finger at local authorities for continuing to build on flood plains.
By comparing flood maps and registers of local taxes the IAU said that 123,000 households in Val-de-Marne and 95,000 in Hauts-de-Seine would be flooded – plus 100,000 in Paris itself if the flood defences did not hold.
The costs of such flooding was estimated at between €17million and €20m, with the authors warning that a “flood of the century” would impact five million people directly and indirectly – as much as one-third of France’s economic activity.
• Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti revealed in September that staff at the Louvre have already starting moving reserve artworks from its basement stores by the Seine – which are very vulnerable in the case of severe flood – to new above-ground storage near the Louvre-Lens in Pas-de-Calais.
Photo: Albert Chevojon-Bibliotheque Historique Ville de Paris - Roger-Viollet
