Nimes under water, firefighters too
Monday, October 3, 1988, in a few hours, 250 to 500 ml of water fell on Nîmes and its surroundings. The phenomenon is very localized - Nîmes Garons a few km away, will receive only 30 ml of water - but violent - the speed of the waters sometimes reaches that of a mountain torrent - and powerfully destructive: 8 dead, 40.000 victims, 3000 cars destroyed, 4 billion francs. The firefighters, also victims of the disaster, are taken by surprise.
6:00 a.m.… the routine.
Since 1:00 a.m., the storm has been thundering over Nîmes and its immediate surroundings. There is nothing to worry about. The weather forecast called, "stormy rainy weather with persistent precipitation and showers"; and such precipitation is usual in this season, about ten times a year. Doctor Colonel Prunet leaves his night shift saying to himself: "we'll do some emptying of cellars today". The first calls for the flooding of low districts in Sommière then Nîmes are managed at the level of the emergency centers concerned.
7:00 am, Nîmes is worried.
The rains are intensifying. The guard officer of the CSP Nîmes, decides to maintain the descending guard at the barracks. The CODIS organizes some reinforcements, from neighboring rescue centres; and constitutes in anticipation a flood column from Haut-Gard to CS Lédignan, 10 km from Nîmes. Lieutenant Colonel Mercier, Departmental Director of Fire and Rescue, blocked at home, is kept informed.
8:00 a.m., Nîmes is choppy.
The cadereaux (small streams) overflow. Many communication channels and part of the EDF and PTT (Natoire central) networks are cut. The CODIS, located in the industrial area, is quickly flooded by water from the nearby hills. Auxiliary energies (generator, batteries, cables) flooded are out of service. A connection with Nîmes is established by a portable, from the top of a building. The CODIS evacuation order is given. At the CSP in Nîmes, located near the station, the DSIS acquired the feeling, as the waters rose, that significant resources had to be committed. At 8 am he asked, by radio link, to the CODIS of Hérault, to organize the columns of ground and air reinforcements.
9:00 a.m., Nîmes floats.
From 9:00 a.m., the column of 5 vehicles from Haut-Gard is in action in the Castanet and Protestant Health Center sectors, to the west of the city. But, in less than an hour, the situation turned to disaster. The PTT and EDF networks are cut almost everywhere. In the city, it's the apocalypse: pallets, propane tanks, cars,… Everything is swept away. The initiatives of individual rescuers take over from the traditional means of warning and rescue, which have been seriously disrupted. At CSP Nîmes, the transmissions are silent, but the generator (located high up) starts. At 9:25 a.m., a radio station installed on the terrace of the barracks alerts the CIRCOSC of Valabres and listens on the departmental network. The ORSEC plan is triggered at 9 am (but the message will not reach the Ministry of the Interior until 45 am, transmission problems).
10:00 a.m., Nîmes in shock.
If "the first rescue operations were marked by a certain inconsistency due to the lack of communications, the training of firefighters in sectorized action, acquired during the fight against forest fires, made it possible to overcome these shortcomings. The shortcut of the administrative circuits made it possible to compensate for the many problems of organization, stewardship and the lack of personnel".
The CODIS 34 and the Grau du Roi Rescue Center ensure the relay, by transmitting by radio on the CSP Nîmes, the requests for help, the partial regulation of the help and the departures of columns of reinforcements. “When you are isolated, all lines of communication interrupted, the only elements of appreciation are proximity information”. At 10 a.m., Dragon 45, the first operational helicopter succeeded in giving the first global view of the disaster area.
11:00 a.m., Nîmes reacts
Help is coming through the air. Indeed, the land relief columns are blocked at the gates of Nîmes by the water and all the damaged objects across them. At the end of the morning, the rounds of helicopters accelerated, 7 aircraft carried out numerous rescues, some of them in extremis: people perched on the roof of buses or traffic signs. At the CSP, we installed an advanced medical post: "in the classroom, we had taken out lots of blankets, and the wounded were installed as they arrived; a hundred, from the little sore to the broken legs. The most serious were evacuated to the hospitals of the department.
13:00 p.m., Nîmes, head out of the water.
The rescue operation is gradually falling into the more classic disaster scenarios. At 14:30 p.m., most of the department heads met at the Prefecture to coordinate their action and assess the evolution of the situation. In the afternoon, the reinforcements from other departments finally manage to penetrate, 800 interventions will be carried out, including 150 by the 18 helicopters in action. The restoration of communications brings its contingent of false rumours: there is talk of a hundred deaths, of children drowned in their cars...
At 20 p.m., the command structure is in place. In the evening, access to the hospital, encumbered with tangled vehicles, was cleared by engineers and the DDE. The Minister of the Interior, Pierre Joxe, comes to visit the various construction sites and... see the efforts to be made in terms of civil security...!
So that the emergency services are no longer "stunned" in the first hours, the firefighters of Nîmes, with their experience, do not lack proposals in this area. Noting that "the more a civilization is evolved, the more it is fragile,… when there are no connections, it does not work or at least there are fluctuations at the start", they suggest installing "in each department a mini-Taverny". This implies in particular: "1) putting the operational decision-making centers (Prefecture, Codis, Samu) out of reach of major risks (water, fire, chemicals, etc.), 2) securing the sensitive PTT and radio links (relay , specialized lines), 3) have an Inmarsat satellite telephone link, 4) have a helicopter base, 5) create helipads at key points, etc.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde) - Published in Noria Magazine, March 1989
