Storm Xynthia hits SW France

An incredible strom blew through Spain, Portugal and France last night and was due to head on up to Denmark today.

We were warned that there was going to be a big storm coming through over Saturday night into Sunday morning, and during Saturday evening the storm warning was upgraded from an orange warning to a red warning for some areas, notably the departement that we border, so we knew we were in for an interesting night. After a family debate we decided that battening down the hatches would include for the first time in a long while the closing of all the shutters on the house, something we don't often do.

We were actually watching the unfolding tsunami situation in Hawaii, and when it failed to materialise at around 10pm France time we decided it was time for bed. The wind at this point was nothing special, just a strong breeze, so we all went to bed and to sleep.

At around 2am we woke to the sound of a howling gale and flapping shutters, so I went downstairs to investigate, and indeed one of the shutters had been blown open by the wind, so having secured it again I went back to bed. The wind was so noisy, there was no chance of getting back to sleep, though Fleur slept through the whole thing. Half an hour later, the next shutter broke free, so I went back downstairsto find one of the bistro shutters flapping in the wind, so having secured it again I decided to make a cup of tea and wait to see if anything else broke free in the wind. I was amazed that we still had electricity, since normally if a pigeon burps at out power cable the power goes off, so I was able to tweet with some of the other twitter community in SW France to compare notes. After 45 minutes nothing else was being damaged by the wind but the power was starting to come and go so time to go back up to bed. The wind blew and blew, until about 5:30am, or at least that was the last time I saw the clock before falling asleep until 9:30am. So in the end no major damage for us though on the coast there was extensive damage and flooding, and sadly to date it has been reported that 22 people have died in France, and 45 in total across Europe.

A powerful weekend for mother nature, reminding us who is incharge!!