Catastrophic Week in the Mountains

They are calling it the flooding of the century. 

While international focus is on Lourdes, you have to look further into the mountains where the valleys are steep and narrow to see the true picture of just how catastrophic this flash flooding has been.


 Video Footage from France 3 Midi-Pyrénées

Towns and villages in the Hautes Pyrénées and beyond are now paying a very high price for the epic winter and spring snowfalls.  We have had a cold spring with little thaw but more snow.  Oh how we laughed on the 8th June when the Géant du Tourmalet completed the convoy to his summer home on the Col by helicopter because the remaining metres of snow left the road still largely impassable. This time last year we rode over on the motorbikes, pausing only to find the last remnant of snow for a photograph with the bikes.

A rapid thaw followed a sudden ramp up in temperature this week.  Rain and thunderstorms then dumped 150mm plus of torrential rain on the already waterlogged ground. The phenomenal quantity of water collected increasing amounts of debris as it smashed it's way downstream.

Perhaps the only miracle is that so few people lost their lives.  

My thoughts are with those who have lost family and friends, homes and businesses, their communities destroyed.