Great Western Coffee Shop

The last time I went to Cannes - I went there for business - we had no weather report from the BA pilot before landing at Nice. I thus I went for the local bus to St Augustin station, as I had planned, but it didn't appear so I went instead into Nice. There I found myself sitting on a train waiting for the line to Cannes to reopen - something about rain.

It was only the next day, seeing a picture in the local newspaper, that I realised there had been a foot of water flowing through the centre of Cannes the on afternoon I landed. That included a street I walked down later to dinner, where I saw no sign of it. So, obviously, they are well used to flash floods along the C^te d'Azur, and can cope with it. All along the Mediterranean coast you can see the flood channels built to let rainwater escape to the sea.

Well, up to a point - the picture is from SNCF, of the inside of Cannes station, last night.
(http://www.lepoint.fr/images/2015/10/04/2191283-2191297-g-alpesmaritimes-cote-d-azur-cannes-sncf-gare-inondations-jpg_3088327_1000x667.jpg)
Being used to some floods perhaps makes you a bit complacent about how bad they can be - in this case 16 deaths reported so far. As in previous cases, it was a big rainstorm part of which got stuck (or was long and thin and moved end-on) so as to produce unmanageable amounts of rain. In this case 100 mm in an hour, and 200 mm over 3 hours, in and above Cannes itself. You may have seen the pictures on the TV news.

Among the ten trains stranded were four full of pilgrims from Lourdes, in special trains with nursing provision. They are waiting for the line to reopen, the rest have already been taken onward by bus.


So I don't want to hear too much complaining about our weather ...