The Seine in Winter: guest blog by IFSF's Paris Bureau Chief, Charlie Crummer

The old Seine, the sustainer of life, the breast of Paris, flowed high and muddy this year. It crested on 22January 2018 at close to 6 metres over normal. People crowded on the old Pont d'Alma to watch it rise and to see how far up it could come on the famous statue of the Zoave. In January of 1910, the worst flood in Paris's history, the water level reached as far as his shoulders; this year it crested at a little below his waist. The flood of June 2016 crested higher than that and even though it was brief, almost surely it will have caused more damage than this winter's inondation. This is because of the less abrupt behavior of the river this time.

A lot of the reporting on this year's flooding didn't show the actual structure of the banks of the Seine. The lower level is called "les berges." On les berges there are walkways and at some places there are roadways. Some of the roadways have been closed off to motorized traffic for many years. These lower levels were flooded by the Seine this year as they have been pretty regularly in the last few years. The benches were completely submerged and the lamp posts stood as lonely sentinels rising out of the waters. But the river did not come at all close to the level of the city streets, though it was high enough for some weeks to stop boat traffic. The rising tide lifted all boats but not the bridges. (Is there an object lession in economics here?) Paris itself didn't suffer much damage, contrary to a lof of the foreign reporting. If it bleeds, it leads, I guess.

Some of the towns and villages up and down the Seine didn't fare so well, however. When the level of the river is rising and the brown water swirls, the Seine shows her power. One of the city officials responsible for her said to me that when she becomes really angry and rears herself all one can do is watch. Finally, there's no controlling her in her passion. If she rises above the level of the high banks protecting the city, she will have her way. Works of art normally stored in the basement of the Louvre would have to be brought up to the higher floors and the visitor's galleries very quickly, because the basements, les caves, would flood.

In winter when the grey sky spits rain, the river flows sullen and, sometimes, a bit menacingly. As the river rises the flow becomes very complicated with eddies and swirling vortices as it flows past bridge pillars, developoing cross currents and mysterious upwellings. These upwellings form strange, glassy calm places in the midst of the rushing water. The ducks and swans aren't fooled by these calms though. They go away to nests somewhere to ride out the weather. In any case the river, usually docile but sometimes showing her frightening power, is the fascinating, beating heart of Paris.

Charlie Crummer is a retired physicist and sometime writer. Mr. Crummer was born in Ohio, raised in Southern California, and has a B.A. from Pomona College and a PhD from UC Riverside.

Mr. Crummer has agreed to become IFSF Paris Bureau Chief, and will be posting reports from the French capitol intermittedly. The Seine in Winter is his second dispatch.