A flooded street lamp and signboards next to the River Seine in Paris. Photo / AP
The heavy rain that has doused parts of France for most of a week finally stopped short of the record deluge that many feared would drown parts of Paris.
The swollen River Seine, which flows through Paris, is expected to continue rising until tonight NZT, reaching 5.95m, according to police.
That's a few raindrops short of the serious flooding in June 2016, when water levels reached 6.1m.
Those centimetres are significant for art lovers, as they're the difference between museums nervously watching river gauges and madly scrambling to save 35,000 pieces of threatened art. Officials at the Louvre, on the banks of the Seine, had already moved paintings on the vulnerable lower level of the Islamic wing and had been on standby for a larger transfer if water begins dripping into the museum.
By yesterday about 1000 people had been removed from vulnerable areas and 1200 households were without power in parts of southeastern France. And more than 170 patients from two hospitals were transferred to less vulnerable facilities.
In Paris, streets next to the river and buildings in low-lying areas were vulnerable, but most Parisians appeared unfazed by their newfound waterworld. Police drone footage showed traffic flowing on city streets and traffic circles, even as boats were unable to travel beneath Paris' bridges because of low or nonexistent clearance. The biggest inconvenience, according to France 24, were "rats being flushed out of the sewers, making the city's rodent problem much more visible".
