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This morning I’m drinking a nice cup of breakfast tea (milk, sugar), munching on a freshly baked pain au chocolat from the boulangerie just up the street, and reflecting on the flood that almost was.

You may recall that the house we are renting in Malestroit stands on the banks of the river Oust (pronounced “oost”, like “boost”). It’s a beautiful, tranquil watercourse meandering southeast from the central spine of the Breton peninsula in the north down to the town of Redon on the border with Loire-Atlantique in the east.

It so happens that this seemingly bucolic river is prone to flooding. We had heard the stories, seen the photos of past inondations. Sounded pretty grim and looked even worse. Tales of homes submerged and views of boats being paddled down the street past our front door. Ask anyone who has lived here most of their lives (which is nearly everyone) and they are eager to raise their eyes heavenward and regale you with accounts of the floods of yore.

Dotted around town are small round plaques mounted on walls to commemorate the high water marks of various past floods. Apart from scaring the bejeezus out of the two of us habitual hill-dwellers, for most visitors these markers stand as low-rent tourist attractions; it’s common here to see tourists pointing at the plaques and enjoying a moment of schadenfreude. Rarely a day goes by in Malestroit without watching an out-of-towner gawp in astonishment at the town’s past flood levels.

In the past, l’inondations, or, les crues were relatively rare events. Old-timers here have told us that they had only witnessed one or two floods in the past. But in the past 25 years there have been several significant floods. Instead of a 50-year event, they now seem to be happening every five to ten years. As a debating proposition, it becomes increasingly more tenuous to deny climate change as one finds the homes of one’s neighbors regularly awash in river muck with greater frequency.

Not Normal

This time the river began to seriously rise about a week or so before Christmas. When it began to look serious, the town government sprang into action in an impressive manner. They have a sort of civil emergency corps made up primarily of volunteer retirees who are reasonably well organized and get to wear bright orange vests as a bonus. [The French love a good uniform, baldrics, badges, hats, clipboards – anything that marks them out as being an official something.] Two of their members visited our house a few days ago to look in on us and ask if we were prepared. All in warp-speed French, of course. I managed to get the gist of what they were saying and answer with near lucidity. Satisfied that we were not completely incompetent, they then took a rough inventory of the furniture on our ground floor, though I wasn’t sure why.

Two days later I found out what they were doing. In the morning, as flood waters were continuing to rise, a town work-truck pulled up, one of the occupants knocked on our door, shook my hand and cheerily confirmed that, according to the previous furniture assessment, we required eight blocks.

Huh? As I puzzled with his announcement, wondering if, in all likelihood, I had misunderstood him, he and his associate unloaded eight large blocks, the kind used as footings for temporary cyclone fence panels for festivals and such. Soon the men finished piling the blocks neatly on the sidewalk next to our door. They smiled again, shook my hand, and careened the truck down the street to the next house.

Our neighbors later explained that the town government does this for everyone who may be threatened with flooding. The blocks are for raising furniture up off the floor and, if actual flooding of the home looks to be imminent, members of the police and/or fire brigade will come to help do this for those who are unable to do it themselves. By the time the blocks were delivered, Cherie and I had already spent a few hours moving what we could upstairs and elevating everything else off the floor. But it was really nice to know that the town government and community was so caring, prepared and organized. We have several elderly neighbors on our street who would be in a sorry state were it not for this kind of assistance.

As the days progressed, so did the flood waters. Soon, the river had breached its banks at the back of our garden and began to slowly creep toward the rear of our house. Neither of us had ever experienced a flood before, so we were a bit stressed out. It was like watching an incoming tide slowly moving up the beach. Except in this case, the tide just kept coming closer. Never receding.

And it just kept raining. Finally, the river had reached the edge of the terrace in front of our back door. We were convinced that we would soon have water covering our ground floor. But at least the rain had stopped. The next morning we woke up to find that the river had retreated back down to the bottom of our garden. Saved! We were so relieved. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a miracle. But it was remarkable how far the waters had receded overnight.

So now, in the aftermath of the flood, as the morning light is finally beginning to edge out the gloom, I can again see the songbirds skipping about the full length of the back garden – all of the way to the river’s natural banks. The background roar of the floodwaters as they tumbled through the town has now gone. The normal sounds of life in Malestroit have returned: an occasional car trundling down the street; the metallic rattle of madame’s La Poste delivery bike and the attendant slap of mail being thrust through our neighbors’ post boxes; the periodic bouts of animated chatter in whirlwind French outside our door as acquaintances come across each other in the street (here, everybody knows absolutely everyone else); the quiet creaks and bangs of window and door shutters up and down the street as they are opened in the morning and closed again in the evenings in an almost ritualistic expression of French-ness.

It’s funny how quickly we’ve grown accustomed to the daily rhythm of life here in France. That became acutely apparent when the floodwaters began to disrupt the normal flow of the sights and sounds which have so indelibly become a part of our daily lives. It made us realize how integral the river is to that life here in Malestroit. When the Oust is out of sorts, so is the entire town. For our part, we’re just happy and grateful that the waters never breached the house. With a little luck, we will have moved to higher ground in Fougères long before the next flood. Fingers crossed!