The Paris flood of 1910
Recent flooding reminded me of this event
Did you know that there was a huge flood in Paris 114 years ago?
I found this out by accident.
One day, I was walking on Quai aux Fleurs along the edge of Île de la Cité, when I noticed a sign on one of the buildings: ‘crue Janvier 1910’.
I was curious, so I got out my phone and searched that phrase.
Lo and behold, I learned there was a huge flood in Paris in 1910 (crue means flood - always learning new vocab!). I looked at the sign again and noticed a line indicating how high the flood waters were — it was at least a few feet taller than me.
For Paris, this was The Big One. Before that, the biggest flood was in 1658!
This one lasted for weeks. At one point, water levels reached about 8 meters (26 feet!) above the average. People used their ingenuity (and necessity) to get around. They built raised pathways using wooden planks to get from one place to another. Police and civilians rowed their way around the city on boats.
As expected, underground areas were all flooded, including subway tunnels and sewers. Those who were left helpless were taken to shelters in churches, government buildings, and schools. The water levels were so high, they reached the top of the famous archways under the bridges that cross the Seine. Millions of people were affected.
As it turns out, the timing of this article coincides with a recent flooding event in Paris.
Just last week, the Seine rose to alarmingly high levels (photo below right) after days of heavy rain. The Paris Marathon was rerouted, and an Olympics test event along the Seine was cancelled because of it. They also had to move the Olympic countdown clock!
But still, it’s not nearly as bad as what happened in 1910. However, Paris remains vulnerable to more catastrophic flooding in the future, according to a government-funded organization. And flooding seems to happen every few years already: water levels rose in 2016, 2018 and 2022 following heavy rains.
(Side note: what I can’t figure out is WHY the people in the below right picture are sitting by the river, or HOW they got over to that seating area.)
In doing my research, I learned that there is a government website called Vigicrue that monitors river flood risks in France. It features regional maps with color-coded reports on the status of each river. Then there’s Météo-France, which monitors all weather-related events and issues their own alerts. It uses a four-color code system from red to green.
One last thing. The word crue was new to me, as I mentioned above. The other word for ‘flood’ is inondation. In English, it’s similar to the word ‘inundated’, which means overwhelmed/flooded. For example, “My Substack newsletter was inundated with subscriber comments.” :) This is a good tip for navigating the French language, and I rely on this logic a LOT with words I don’t know.
Very interesting article! Thank you for your research in the history of floods in Paris!