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The Great Flood of 1910 comes upon Paris so quickly that almost no one has time to get out of its way. Streets that are dry on one day have flooded basements the next--and on the day after that, the water stands inches or a foot deep in the streets.
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By the river, the ground floors of houses are abandoned. Those who are fortunate enough to live on the upper stories get to their apartments using ladders and their front windows. In back of the left-hand man in the white cardigan, you can just see someone climbing a ladder. Those on the lower floors have to be rescued. Here a postal worker or gendarme is carrying a woman to safety; everyone seems to be enjoying it. |
This is early in the flood; the wheels of the cart and the bicycle are barely under water.
| In the flooded sections, pedestrians use passerelles, temporary sidewalks made of boards on sawhorses or wooden crates. You can see them being used in the pictures above and to the right. From the sidewalk in the picture to the right, a woman will plunge to her death, drowning in four feet of water thick with mud. |
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As the flood grows worse, the river rises above the level of the quais. To prevent all of the center of the city being flooded, Army engineers construct walls of sandbags. Walls like these are all that prevents the flooding of the Louvre.
More pages on the Great
Paris Flood of 1910:
"A Two-Block-Long Swimming
Pool" | No Bridge is Safe |
A Panorama of the Flood |
Desolation
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