The city of Agen hit by torrential rains – archyde

Over 3,000 flashes

Around 11 p.m., after a thunderstorm had passed and the precipitation had ended, several streets near the city center were under water, car traffic stopped, with a level of water reaching the knees of passers-by and rushing into houses, noted a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the spot. In some streets, cars had water almost at the level of their windows.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen so much water in barely an hour”, said Jean-Claude, a resident of rue Tarenque, near the city center. “I barely had time to get out of the car when it stopped” a few hundred meters further on, the engine “Drowned”, deplores this sixty-year-old. “In fifteen minutes, the water rose by one meter”, says Farah, 23, “Everything is flooded at home”.

According to the French Storm and Tornado Observatory and its online site Keraunos, “More than 3,000 lightning bolts have been detected in the Lot-et-Garonne” Wednesday evening and “The same phenomenon is expected in Aude” in the night.

Power cuts

In neighboring Dordogne, firefighters also reported in the middle of the night of flooding, falling trees with a hundred rescue interventions and no injuries to deplore. 200 to 300 subscribers were also deprived of electricity following a break in a line and Enedis technicians were on the scene, according to firefighters.

Thirty-two departments, from Occitanie to Ile-de-France, including Lot-et-Garonne, had been placed by Météo-France on orange vigilance for the risk of thunderstorms and flooding on Wednesday and Thursday.

According to the regional weather forecast at 1:30 a.m., “The stormy axis was moving east, from Ariège to Aveyron. Météo-France anticipates stormy rains » in the second part of the night “In the Tarn, with aggregations locally approaching” 100 mm by Thursday morning “.

In the west of Midi-Pyrénées, the risk of thunderstorms “Weakens or ceases”, according to the national bulletin, “Orange vigilance can be lifted. On the other hand, this risk remains in the east of Midi-Pyrénées and in the Aude ”.

The “Rainfall accumulations could still be significant, of the order of 50 to 60 mm, locally more. It is in the Aude that these storms could be the most damaging ”, add the forecasters.