The Seine has passed the 6-meter mark, and is headed for 6.5 meters by later today, passing the mark of the 1982 flood. Officials have closed Metro stations, several museums and other buildings in the affected area, and may need to order evacuations.
The Environment Ministry warns that the high levels will not be a peak, but a plateau, lasting at least through the weekend. But they will still be well below the record level of the 1910 flood, which passed 8 meters.
A number of museums, including the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, have moved artwork to higher floors or out of the building in advance of the flood; a smaller museum further upstream at Montargis, suffered flooding damage yesterday.
For more details and pictures from TheLocal.fr and the New York Times, click HERE and HERE
I’m surprised the French haven’t built a flood control channel to divert the waters of the Seine. Seems it would pay in the long run.
Actually, Paris has a flood control system, which has worked fairly effectively with the exception of two occasions: 1982, and now. Just after the catastrophic flood of 1910, and recognizing that winter flooding was a regular occurrence in the area, Paris built Les Grands Lacs (The Great Lakes) a series of reservoirs into which overflow is diverted. The canals around Paris also absorb some of the extra flow. There’s been discussion in recent years, after 1982, of other measures that could be added.