Just Before the Swollen Seine...

The morning before the continuous days of rain that caused Paris’ Seine River to swell, I went out to shoot on the banks of Ile Saint-Louis. It was a mild sunny morning sandwiched between the drizzly greys we’d been having, and to many Parisians, it was the perfect harbinger of summer. But little did we know...

The rain would return the following day and continue ceaselessly, causing flooding and considerable damage to homes and businesses and disruption to public transportation and the flow of normal commutes. Even the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay completely closed in order to move artwork to higher ground.

The images of the inundated French towns and the swollen Seine are startling, especially the before and after shots. My family went to visit the tip of Ile de la Cité yesterday where many go to picnic on the tip of Square du Vert-Galant only to find the entire island completely buried under water, as are all the banks! Rain is common in the city, but when it comes, it normally doesn’t last for days and days and cause such havoc. The 6.10 meter rise (about 20 feet) of the Seine River has been really something to behold and will take about a week or so for the levels to come down to normal, and though there is more rain in the forecast, we're crossing our fingers for the return of prolonged sunshine… there’s a lot of cleaning up to do!