After the storm Xanthia

Region affected by Storm Xanthia

8 April 2010:
Government officials announce black zones, where housing will not be built, and existing housing will be demolished (from July this year). Almost 1,400 land plots will be returned to their natural state. 915 houses in Vendee and 595 houses in Charente-Maratimes are to be knocked down. This includes many houses in the worst hit communes of La Faute-sur-Mer (674 houses, including 92 main homes) and l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer (241 houses, including 25 main homes), as well as some houses on the Ile de Ré.

Affected house-owners will receive an average of 250,000 euro compension on the building, but nothing for the value of the land. Most house owners are not happy with this announcement, especially after their communes had given building permits for the houses now to be demolished.

2 April 2010:
Faute-sur-Mer coomes back to life, with one campsite, hardly touched by Xanthia, opening this weekend. Another will take some months to be repaired and refurbished. Elsewhere in the coatal regions of la Vendée, camp sites and holiday homes are opening fore business as soon as the are able, even if the locals are still waiting for summer weather.

10 March 2010:
Trying to return to normal after the multiple funerals and a memorial service is difficult for l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer and La Faute-sur-Mer. The children have gone back to school, with trauma counsellors at l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer, but La Faute-sur-Mer is now a ghost town - completely evacuated and the electricty cut by the mayor.

At l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer, a house has now collapsed after the ocean’s battering, and the Hotel de Commerce, built in 1922 and a local landmark, is being demolished today - its walls are no longer stable. Of course, the farmers continue to have huge problems because their land is completely salt-sodden, even the animal feed is affected, let alone this seasons crops that had been growing in the now ruined fields. There is now talk of shutting down the Municipal camping, completely flooded and built within a floodable area.

3 March 2010:
The Île de Ré has returned to its original arrangement of three small islands! As well as the digue de Martray collapsing, separating the northern part of the island, the part that contains Loix, the smallest town on the island, has also been cut from the neighbouring parts of the island. It was at Loix that the two deaths from the storm occurred.

Despite being so low-lying and (as an island) surrounded by the ocean, the Île de Ré and its inhabitants weathered this extraordinary combination of storm and Spring tides much better than their mainland neighbours. The locals believe this is because, not only are they used to the wildness of the sea and its storms and floods - “everyone has a pair of waders”, but the Rétian mayors have ensured that houses are not built on the more low-lying parts, unlike on the mainland where houses have been widely built on floodable agricultural land. There is also the small matter of, on hearing that there was a Red Alert for the night to come, Rétian mayors went out at 3 am waking up their villagers and telling to move to safer places. The many drownings on the mainland were mostly of elderly people living in bungalows, at home and asleep in their beds.

Sea-wall breached at Saint-Martin-de-Ré Image: AFP

1 March 2010:
On the night of 27th February, Xanthia blew through, with wind speeds of 150kph, from the Azores, during a period of high Spring tides [with a coefficient of about 115]. The result was high tides 1.50m above normal high tides, and a ‘storm tide’, similar to a mini-tsunami. This has caused the Île de Ré to be divided in two near Ars-en-Ré, the digue de Martray being smashed .

“On the Île de Ré, the Martray sea wall has suffered the effects of the wind and the sea.”
Image: sudouest.com

As a result of this storm system, which affected the Atlantic coast from La Rochelle to the Channel, at least 28 people drowned locally (51 deaths overall), while throughout the Atlantic coast region, one million homes were without electricity. Most of those that died, lived in l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer and its close neighbour La Faute-sur-Mer, on the coast just north of La Rochelle. The village was submerged during the night when its protective, 200-year old sea-wall collapsed under the battery of the wind and tide.

10-20% of visitor beds are now out of action, the campsites have faired better. Most of the cycle tracks are still under water, especially on the west of the island. Now to wait until the water has gone, the damage assessed and the repair works can be done. President Sarkosy has already released 3 million euro to help the storm’s victims.