The Seine rises every winter in Paris, but this year it swelled tremendously beginning on January 21. The water did not roll over the tops of the quay walls, but instead pushed under the streets through the saturated soil. Soon the Seine gushed up from the sewers into the streets from manholes and sewer grates. When the water reached its peak one week later around 20 feet above normal, the statue of the Zouave on the Pont de l’Alma was up to his neck.
In the midst of the disaster, despite decades of political division, scandal, and deep tensions between social classes, Parisians rallied to help one another and rebuild. Leaders and people answered the call to action in the city’s hour of need. This newfound ability to work together proved crucial just four years later when France was plunged into the depths of World War I.
Parisians crowded into churches, government buildings, schools, and other shelters. Floating through the flooded zone, police, soldiers, and volunteers plucked stranded Parisians from their windows carrying them to safety. Engineers hastily erected miles of wooden walkways so that Parisians could continue to move throughout the city.
But not everyone wanted to help. Looters moved into hard-hit areas and robbed abandoned houses. Driven by a growing indignation at the crime, Parisians sometimes took matters into their own hands, lynching or beating looters until the police often intervened. As the water rose, so did people’s fear.
The flood was not only a natural disaster but a man-made one. Parisians had trusted in their city’s modern infrastructure to improve their lives in the new century. But that technology made the situation worse. The Métro carried water through its underground tunnels into several neighborhoods. When the Seine infiltrated a Métro line under construction on the Left Bank, the water entered the tunnel, went back under the main channel of the Seine, and re-emerged on the Right Bank, flooding the neighborhood around the Gare Saint-Lazare. No one had expected this part of the city to flood.
As the waters rose, photographers captured countless images of the rising water and its human effects. Many circulated as postcards which were bought and sold even as the water remained high. Vendors lined the river and its bridges hawking these images, many of which were sent around the world thus spreading the news about the flood.
Ironically very few scholars have written anything about the flood of 1910. However, on the 100th anniversary of the great flood of the Seine in January 2010 and in the year of the fifth anniversary of hurricane Katrina, the story of Paris coming from the flood waters stronger than ever provides a powerful tale of hope for cities and people rebuilding their lives in the wake of nature’s fury.