The first demolitions in the hamlet of La Brague took place on Wednesday March 24, 2021, under the watchful eye of the cameras -
F. Binacchi / ANP / 20 Minutes
On the night of October 3 to 4, 2015, the deadly floods on the Côte d'Azur devastated a housing estate in the town of Biot.
Built on the bed of the Brague, a river, while “flood risk prevention plans did not yet exist”, this hamlet will be “renatured”.
This Wednesday morning in Biot, Cécile Lagier returned for the last time to the house she had acquired in 2014. These 54 m2 on three floors, bought by the Urban Community of Antibes Sophia-Antipolis (Casa) l ' last summer, are going to be shaved.
Like the 23 other dwellings in the hamlet of Brague, named after the river that devastated everything in its path during the deadly floods that occurred on the Côte d'Azur on the night of October 3 to 4, 2015.
Cécile Lagier and her children, in their old house just before its destruction - F. Binacchi / ANP / 20 Minutes
“Fortunately, we weren't there.
The water rose to 1.70 m in the living room.
When I bought, for 400,000 euros, I really fell in love with this subdivision with swimming pool and with this small stream right next to it.
I did not know at all that there were risks, ”explains the young woman.
"The flood risk prevention plans did not exist"
Regularly flooded, this complex, built in the 1980s on a bend in the Brague, was legally flooded, while “flood risk prevention plans did not yet exist”, recalls Jean Léonetti.
The mayor LR of Antibes and president of the Casa was on site this Wednesday morning.
“We correct situations.
We come to remove concrete where it shouldn't be, ”he explains.
That evening in October 2015, the subdivision, built on embankments on the bed of the Brague, had been hit hard by the waves and had perhaps finally hampered a more natural regulation of the flood.
Downstream, three residents of a flooded retirement home were found dead.
The Marineland park in Antibes was also found drowned in mud.
The hamlet of La Brague and others in the plain
To limit the effects of new 100-year floods, the hamlet of La Brague will therefore be “renatured”.
The town hall of Biot, via the Barnier fund, and the agglomeration community have therefore bought all of the housing units for 8.6 million euros.
After the demolition work and the elimination of the embankments “over at least 2 m in height, we will again widen the bed of the river, making it pass from 30 to 80 m at this point”, specifies Valérie Emphoux, manager of flood prevention at the Casa.
A walking area and an ice jam trap will also be set up, at an additional cost of 5.5 million euros.
"La Brague will find its natural route as found on the Napoleonic land register," said LR mayor of Biot, Jean-Pierre Dermit.
This work will lower the water level by 80 cm in the event of a 100-year flood.
"
Other sites are still planned below, still in the plain of Brague, hit for decades by floods.
"We are also going to demolish Les Moulières and the hamlet of Pylône [also bought back]," explains Jean Léonetti.
Instead, there will be nature, nothing but nature.
"
Environment
Three years after the deadly floods, measures rain on the Brague
Justice
He builds a wall to protect himself from flooding, a man condemned in Antibes
Flood
Housing
Flood
Town planning
Planet
Nice