Torrential rains fell on the island of Basse-Terre, causing considerable material damage and killing a dead. The government has announced that the state of natural disaster would be recognized.
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The tropical storm Fiona hit Guadeloupe hard. This cyclonic phenomenon, the sixth of a 2022 season hitherto not very active, reached the department in the evening of Friday, September 16. After having come close to the desirade, the most eastern of the six inhabited islands that make up the Guadeloupe archipelago, the Cyclone center crossed the Grande-Terre on the night of Friday to Saturday.
But it was the Basse-Terre that has undergone the largest damage caused by the storm passage: torrential rains fell on the mountainous south of this volcanic island, causing spectacular floods that swept everything away In their path and killed a 54-year-old man, whose house was engulfed by the waves in the city of Basse-Terre, chief town of the department.
The winds caused by the Fiona storm were accompanied by gusts which reached up to 120 km/h in Guadeloupe, a value which is not exceptional for a cyclonic phenomenon in the Antilles. But it is mainly precipitation that has been unprecedented, causing considerable damage. In the space of six hours, on the night of Friday to Saturday, it fell more than 300 mm in places, mainly in the chief town and in several neighboring municipalities. Or the equivalent of a month and a half of rain. Precipitation continued during the day on Saturday, then in the evening, producing incredible cumulatives exceeding 500 mm in Saint-Claude or Capesterre-Belle-Eau and approaching this threshold in other localities.
The executive has already committed to supporting this bruised department. “After the Fiona storm, my thoughts go to Guadeloupe, to our carried compatriot and all the inhabitants affected,” wrote Emmanuel Macron on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. “The state of natural disaster will be recognized and the rescue fund for the overseas mobilized. I asked the Minister Delegate to go there,” added the Head of State, confirming an announcement made a few Hours previously by Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior said that the recognition procedure for the state of natural disaster would be signed “at the end of next week”.
After a nightmarish night, the inhabitants of Basse-Terre discovered a desolation show on Saturday morning. “It is a real disaster. What we have there, it will rise to hundreds of thousands of euros in damage,” notes Ferdy Louisy, the mayor (PS) of Goyave, a town of 7,500 inhabitants Devastated by the flood of the small river.
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