The Flood of 1910

My friend Madame M is in town this month and proposed an afternoon rendez-vous to take in an exhibition. There are many possibilities to choose from on any day in Paris, and as odd as it might seem we decided to visit the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris to learn all about the Great Flood of Paris in January 1910. It was a fine spring afternoon, and we met in the Marais for a bite to eat before strolling to the bibliotheque. It was difficult to imagine the streets we were walking were once underwater, or that the Seine could rise to the point of destruction, but that is exactly what happens every hundred years or so in Paris. I like to say "it rains more here in one month than it does in San Diego in a year", and it's true! But usually it is more of a steady drizzle, with an occasional downpour lasting an hour or so. Nothing that would cause a flood. Mother Nature unleashed her wrath with a vengeance however a century ago, and from January 25th until the 15th of March (when the Seine returned to normal ), Paris became the Venice of France. First came the inondé, an innundation of rain that continued until the earth simply could not absorb any more. Heavy snowfall during the month preceding had begun to melt and the Seine was already rising above normal levels. Photographs document the river just a couple of meters below the top of the bridges that connect the right and left banks of Paris, and curious onlookers flocked to see the spectacle of a lifetime. But what was an afternoon lark soon became a nightmare as the river continued to rise, and soon the city had a full scale disaster on its hands. Contributing to the problem -ironically- was progress. During the century since the last flood (crue), the infrastructure of Paris had been modernized, much of it underground. Sewers were laid and tunnels snaked throughout the city, the metro was born! The streets were illuminated by gaslight, and telephone lines as well were all part of the city beneath a city-the catacombs and tunnels famous in Paris. Engineers of the day hadn't counted on a hundred year inondé however, and when the Seine spilled over and ran into the streets it flowed freely into the metro tunnels, and from there continued to flood the city from underground as well as above. The gas pipes burst and telephone lines were damaged, leaving the city in darkness and without a modern communications system. The storage cellars of the ancient market Les Halles were full of wine, grain, cheese, and water-much of the foodsource that supplied Paris was ruined. The little zoo at the Jardin des Plantes was evacuated - except for the giraffe. It was thought her height would keep her safe (but tragically she died of pneumonia). People entered and exited their second story apartments through the window by ladder, the bottom floor of the buildings being flooded. Mail was delivered by hand window to window, to be a facteur was to be an acrobat balancing on wooden planks that served as a sidewalk, on ladders that served as stairs. ("Neither rain, nor sleet...") The french came together, organizing clothing and food drives, and using their own unique brand of gallows humour to cope with matters completely out of their control. They suffered two more rounds of flooding in February - just when they were beginning to recover from the first - and it wasn't until mid March that the Seine receded and the rebuilding could begin. As I regarded the antique photographs of rowboats on the Grands Boulevards and the river cresting the bridges I thought - just for a moment - of how the weather has been so extreme this year, and that this could happen again.....we are after all, at the whim of Mother Nature!