Lionel Gougelot // Photo credit: FRANK PERRY / AFP 10:21 a.m., March 17, 2024

After several floods in less than five months, the State is accelerating in Hauts-de-France to better prevent the overflowing of certain rivers in the north.

This is particularly the case for the Aa river, where a new mega pump has just been put into service, near Dunkirk.

Objective: to lower the water level in the hinterland.

Water continues to worry residents living near rivers in the north of the country.

It must be said that the region has been strongly affected by flooding since the beginning of autumn 2023. So, a new mega pump has just been renovated and put into service at the mouth of the Aa, near Dunkirk.

It is in addition to that which had functioned during the recent floods, but which had to be reinforced by temporary installations from Holland in particular.

A long-term installation which will now make it possible to promote the evacuation of river water towards the sea and therefore limit the consequences of flooding in the hinterland.

The development makes it possible to evacuate more than 60,000 m3 of water from the river to the sea. Flooded areas in the event of flooding in the Aa valley should be relieved more quickly.

"It's a bit like our strategic means of evacuating water. It will allow us to ramp up much more quickly in the event of a flood period, which will really allow us, as soon as we have a weather alert, to push as much water as possible outside the canals and therefore from homes", explains Loïc Xavier Thirode, the delegated prefect for defense and security, to Europe 1.

“It’s true that we are reassured”

30 kilometers inland, in the Saint-Omer region, watercourse cleaning operations have begun.

Jean-Paul, a resident of the area, recognizes that the government's commitments seem to be kept.

"The cleaning, the history of the pumps too, in particular one which would have been restored there, near Dunkirk... It's true that we are reassured because we see that it is taken seriously It's true, it must be admitted. Of course, we will have to get used to slightly higher water levels. But I hope that this will be resolved precisely with this work and I think that we will get there,” he assures. 

What remains for these victims is persistent anxiety and worried glances towards the sky at the slightest downpour.

A trauma still far from being erased.