It is 8:00 a.m. and in one of the rooms at the town hall in Guingamp, the table is quickly set. Documents, computers and telephones, landlines or mobiles, ready to call. There are half a dozen people sitting. Elected officials, members of the various services, and Philippe Le Goff, the mayor. This Friday, October 13, it is crisis unit: a flood threatens. This is an exercise led by the Prefecture of Côtes-d’Armor. But everyone plays the game. Stéphane Dumas, director of technical services, spreads the cards of the threatened neighborhoods on the table. Even if, on this Friday morning, only Sainte-Croix is concerned.
8:13, phone call, the first of a long series. A message announces orange vigilance with strong storms and submersion waves. Guingamp goes on alert at level 2. Information is sent to the population via a voice message. As everyone divides up the tasks, another phone call. It is a (fake) local resident asking if he can send his children to school
“Pre-alert rating”
8:24 the prefecture calls to give an update. “The PCS (Communal Protection Plan) is activated on our side,” announces the mayor. For several minutes, the technical supervisor’s mobile phone has been hot: the teams for the street blockade have been formed, twelve people in three different places. New message to the public: “Guingamp town hall warns you that the Trieux level will reach its pre-alert level”. The prefecture activates a departmental operational center at 9:00 a.m.
In the previous minutes, several other residents called, more or less anxious. The mayor collects their identities and addresses and reassures by specifying that teams bring sandbags or advises them to contact family in the event of an evacuation. One of them mentions water in the street, a sign of the importance of the flood and the height of the water. “There, it means that the alarm threshold has been exceeded, we have to move to level 3,” slips Stéphane Dumas. Reactivity. New voice message, which mentions “a potential evacuation”. People are encouraged to move their furniture.
At 9.10 a situation update will be made via video with the other two municipalities affected by the exercise, Pontrieux and Paimpol. Option to list all the decisions made during the last 50 minutes. A new point is planned for 10 o’clock, and the prefecture announces that it will take over receiving calls from residents.
“There will be water here, there and there. So we have to evacuate these houses”
“Get people out of their homes”
Stéphane Dumas points to the map of the neighborhood shown on the TV. “There will be water here, there and there. So we have to evacuate these houses,’ he says. A municipal police officer is being sent to the scene, an accommodation center will be opened and CCAS agents will be requested to organize reception there. Because the goal is to “get people out of their homes”. The telephone number for residents, provided by the prefecture, is displayed on the city’s illuminated signs.
While a helicopter is flying over the area and help is being requested from firefighters and civil protection, the center is open at 10 a.m., people are being evacuated and supplies are underway. Only a couple in their eighties refuse to leave their home and seek refuge upstairs. “It would be good to keep in touch,” clarifies the prefecture. “Usually the cloud passes at 11 o’clock, then it will fall. You can already plan a lunch but no beds.” The situation appears to be under control. The exercise, which sees all municipal services working efficiently and in total coordination, is still to last two hours.