That October morning, the Aude inspired deep pity. It was really painful to see, this river almost dried up, curled up, lost in the middle of its bed of pebbles, after a summer of drought and heat wave. Its flow was so weak that one could not distinguish with the eye the direction of its current, except to follow the tiny undulation of the aquatic vegetation which lined the bottom.
How to understand that we had before us a sleeping monster whose awakenings inspire the latent fear of the inhabitants living on its shores? An executioner who can roll muddy waters, carry away everything in his greasy foam and leave in his wake a land transformed into a lake. On November 12 and 13, 1999, its dramatic flood killed 26 people. On October 14 and 15, 2018, the river killed 15 people in one of its furies, including 6 here in Trèbes. In early 2020, storm Gloria caused it to overflow again in the same place, much to the despair of residents who were barely cauterizing their wounds.
From 35 centimeters to 7.60 meters
A bridge with huge arches spans what is for the time being only a semblance of an obstacle, capable of suddenly becoming as wide and impassable as a delta. The water, at its lowest level, barely licks the bottom of the graduated scale indicating the heights. Four years ago, on the night of October 14 to 15, 2018, it went from 35 centimeters at midnight to 7.60 meters at 5 a.m. In the Aude café-restaurant, the boss shows on the wall how far she has climbed. “One meter eighty”, he remembers.
All trace of the disaster has disappeared, except in the memory of the manager, who remains scarred for life. He is not the only one. “It is an indelible memory, a significant trauma for the inhabitantsconfirms Eric Ménassi, the PS mayor of the town. Next, Trèbes had to rebuild. » On a wall of the quays is inscribed the height reached by the flood, although lower than that of October 1891. So that no one is unaware of what this whimsical river is capable of, with its extreme ups and downs. These features engraved in stone and these images imprinted in the minds are in a way the memory of water.
Near the arenas that the flood had transformed into a swimming pool, Eric Mutin contemplates this river, a source of many worries for him. Officially head of division of the Western Mediterranean flood forecasting service (SPC), attached to the regional directorate for the environment, planning and housing (Dreal), he is, in short, watchdog of the rivers Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude and a large part of Hérault. He remembers those two days and that night in 2018. “It fell 350 millimeters of rain in ten hours”, he explains.
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