Parisians let out a very cautious sigh of relief Saturday as they watched water levels in the Seine River begin to slowly drop 6.1 meters in feet, allowing the French capital to think about the massive mop-up of homes, businesses and public walkways ahead.
Thousands of people had been evacuated in the greater Parisian region, and 19,000 residents living in the areas surrounding the so-called City of Lights were left in the dark, as floods wiped out power services.
Business owners were seen starting to clean up the mess, but the city remains on alert as light showers continue.
In the regions south of Paris, some have lost everything.
Enry de Brolles, 78, found his bookshop in Neumours completely inundated after days of heavy rains.
“It’s the loss of a lifetime of work that disappears,” he told CNN affiliate BFMTV. He says he does not know if he’ll even be able to reopen his business.
The city’s famous Louvre museum has kept its doors shut for a second day as it continues its painstaking operation of moving 150,000 pieces of art and artifacts from its lower levels to higher ground in case the deluge made its way to the world-famous site.
The Seine crested at 6.1 meters (20 feet) above its usual levels early Saturday morning, the environment ministry reported, and is slowly receding, now at around 6.09 meters.
The floods in the city are likely to recede more and more over the coming days, if weather forecasts are correct. This is good news for Paris, but not for the whole of France, which has declared a state of natural disaster.
“We are still on alert and we are also concerned about some areas in France, the Eure and Seine Maritime regions that may have floods as well,” Environment Minister Marie-Ségolène Royal said, referring to regions in the country’s east.
Parts of Germany, where 10 people have been killed in the floods in recent days, are also expected to experience downpours, meaning rivers and tributaries there will be cresting over coming days as water works its way down the river systems, the ministry said. One man in France has died in the floods, swept away on the outskirts of Paris while horse riding.
‘Like Noah’s Ark’
The floods have come at the worst time for the French government, which has been scrambling to keep gas stations from running dry and cities powered after workers at oil refineries and nuclear plants walked off the job weeks ago over proposed changes to labor laws. Transportation workers have joined the strike, and only a third of trains are currently running in the country.
The floods and strikes also come ahead of the monthlong Euro 2016 soccer championship, which kicks off next week and is expected to attract some 2.5 million people.
Some flights were grounded this week as air traffic controllers went on strike, and chaos is expected next week if pilots join the action as planned from June 11, the day after the soccer event begins.
American journalist Mort Rosenblum, author of “The Secret Life of the Seine River,” has lived by the river for 30 years, and told CNN on Friday that he had never seen the river rise so high.
“This is June; one night we’re sitting on the deck having wine and it’s perfectly normal, expecting the little ducks to float by in the morning, you know, calmly, and the next morning you wake up and it’s like Noah’s Ark,” he said.