The Levee That Saved Paris: The Great Flood of 1910

In January 1910, the Seine rose higher than it had in centuries, submerging Paris under a brown, sewage-laced flood. This episode traces the unprecedented disaster: how a wet autumn and a series of storms swelled the river, how the city's aging infrastructure failed, how the Métro and trains ground to a halt, and how the Third Republic scrambled to respond. We meet the Pont de l'Alma statue whose rising water became the city's informal gauge, the thousands of refugees crammed into schools and barracks, and the ingenious réseau de bateaux that ferried Parisians across flooded boulevards. The flood exposed deep class divides—the wealthy fled, the poor waded—and forced a reckoning with urban planning that would reshape the city's sewers, embankments, and flood defenses for a century. Yet the disaster also sparked a surprising solidarity: neighbours shared boats, shopkeepers handed out free bread, and the government's own relief efforts, though chaotic, forged a template for modern crisis management. #GreatFloodOf1910 #SeineRiver #Paris #ThirdRepublic #UrbanDisaster #Flooding #PontDeLAlma #ZouaveStatue #Métro #BoulevardHaussmann #Refugees #CrisisManagement #FrenchHistory #20thCentury #ClimateHistory #Infrastructure #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo