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after the whirlwind,
in les landes
xavier  

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France’s western isles: Ile de Ré

on first arriving in France - driving

France is not England

Marianne - a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps

the calendar of the French Revolution

the 6th bridge at Rouen: Pont Gustave Flaubert,
new vertical lift bridge

Futuroscope

Vulcania

the French umbrella & Aurillac

cathedrale saint-jean-baptiste de lyon

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after the whirlwind, in les landes  

the forest as seen by francois mauriac, and today

places and playtime

roundabout art of Les Landes

50 years old: Citroën DS

the Citroën 2CV:
a French motoring icon

la belle époque

Pic du Midi - observing stars clearly, A64

Carcassonne, A61: world heritage fortified city

Grand Palais, Paris

Marianne - a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps

the calendar of the French Revolution

le pique-nique

Hermès scarves

bastide towns

mardi gras! carnival in Basque country

what a hair cut! m & french pop/rock

country life in France: the poultry fair

short biography of Pierre (Peter) Abelard

the whirlwind

At four a.m. [04:00] on Saturday, 23rd January 2009, the landscape of the Department of Les Landes was changed for perhaps the next hundred years.

Short video of Klaus moving across southern France. 0:00:19 secs

The winter storm Klaus, an extra-tropical cyclone originating in the Bay of Biscay, swept in from the Atlantic and across southern France and northern Spain, reaching northern Italy and even the Adriatic Sea. A band of strong [60km/h] high-level [9 kilometres up] winds - a jetstreak - descended over the Bay of Biscay, stretching from the East Atlantic to western Europe. Ground level wind speeds were recorded at 180km/h [113 mph], and even at 200 km/h [125 mph] on the first inland higher ground.

Satellite image of Klaus-related jetstreak [red area] approaching France, 00:00 on 23.02.09. Image: MeteoGroup

Storm Klaus caused widespread destruction: building damage, power outages, flooding and travel disruption. It tore off roofs, toppled and broke electric and telephone pylons and towers, and above all in Les Landes, it downed hundreds of thousands of trees. There were also at least twenty deaths, including at a primary school in north Spain. The storm’s effects were felt from Barcelona to the Channel Islands.

“Klaus had a central pressure of 967 millibars on Saturday morning, January 24. As it moved across southern France, the storm's cold front extended southward and raked across the Pyrenées and northern Spain. According to METAR observations, three-second gusts reached up to 139 km/h [83.4 mph] in Biarritz, France, and up to 111 km/h [66.6 mph] in Barcelona, Spain, before the storm entered the Mediterranean and moved toward Corsica.” [Quoted from insurancejournal.com]

Red alerts on a TV forecast map, afternoon of 23rd January

“The French meteorological office, Meteo France, had issued a red alert for five departments in southwest France on Saturday as winds of 160 kilometers per hour and higher were recorded in the region. A gust of 184 kph was recorded in the eastern Pyrenees near Perpignan. Meteo France described the winds as some of the strongest recorded since records began.” [Quoted from businessinsurance.com]

One Landais mayor commented that the storm in 1999 was a joke compared to the 2009 storm.

damage to the infrastructure

“At the height of the storm, some 1.7 million households were without power, and by mid-day Monday more than half a million remained without power. [...] more than 3,000 French utility workers—assisted by additional teams from England, Germany, and Portugal—are working to restore power ...” [Quoted from insurancejournal.com]

“The national power grid manager, Electricite Reseau Distribution France (EDF), said it could take a long time to restore power.” [Quoted from insurancejournal.com]

Thousands of reinforced concrete pylons were not toppled, but were snapped and bent in one or more places, leaving cat’s cradle tangles of cables strewn on the fallen trees and the ground. It took until 5th February, for all households to be provided with some sort of temporary power supply. Many remote homesteads in the forest, as well as isolated hamlets, have been provided with generators from 100kW to 600kW power - over eight hundred have been made available.

Bordeaux, Biarritz and Pau airports were closed and train services in the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrenees regions were stopped entirely.

Because the widespread loss of power, and also because of damage to pylons and sub-stations, much of the mobile phone and land-line phones were out of action, in some places for almost two weeks.

abelard.org had no mains electricity from Saturday 23rd January until Tuesday 3rd February (11 days), and only then because a long temporary power cable is now laid down from the village centre through the devasted forest, over the fallen trunks, and connected to the house. General opinion is that the permanent airial line will not be re-installed for several months, after the dozens of pines in this part of the forest are cleared away.

the cost

“Estimates for the financial consequences of the storm Klaus has raged in the south-west of France on 24 January last, was revalued at 1.2 billion euros. This is what has just announced the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA).”
The storm is expected to cost between 1 and 1.4 billion euros to insurers, with a number of claims estimated at present to 500,000 people, including 400,000 previously reported, said Tuesday Bernard Spitz, president of the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA).

An estimate greater than 28 January, in a range of 600 million to 1 billion euros.

damage to the forest

“The regions of Gironde and Landes in southern France, one of Europe's largest forest areas, were hard hit by the strong winds. Forestry officials say that more than half the trees in the area, where thousands of people rely on the timber industry for a living, appear to have been toppled.” [Quoted from insurancejournal.com]

The first estimations in France are that between 30 to 50 million cubic metres of trees, mainly pine and poplar, were felled by the storm. It is now estimated that perhaps 60% to 70% of pine forest were felled in Aquitaine - quite disastrous for its lumber industry. The estimation is that the amounts knocked over correspond to eight years, more or less, of normal wood consumption. It would be intended mainly for the packaging and paper industries and for wood energy. Now, because the current global economic difficulties, there is great concern that there will be little market for the wood, particularly pinewood. For instance, the Spanish wood market was closed last summer. This knock down will glut the market for many years, so the prices will go way down just to get rid of the surplus lumber.

The lumber becomes next to valueless if it is not cleared from the damp forest environment, becoming a haven for fungi which spoil and damage the wood. Furniture quality timber, from more mature trees, must be cleared from the forest floor within two to three years. Younger, smaller trees can be left for six to seven years, their timber being used for paper and other processed wood products, as well as for biomass. In 1999, provision was made for managed storage of about one million cubic metres of timber being stocked. Currect discussions suggest that, this time, ten million cubic metres of lumber will need longterm storage.

In 1999, the last large storm here, 27 million cubic metres of trees fell. It was not as devastating as the 2009 storm, and took ten years to clear up, adding much additional work to the usual logging industry. This time, it will take at least five years to remove the broken and fallen trees, and maybe a further fifteen years to reestablish the forest. It could take a century before the Aquitaine forest can return to its former majesty after the current chaos.

one year later

• One local commune says they have managed to clear one third of their communal forest’s mess.
• Roads throughout the forest region are being battered and potholed by the continuous heavy traffic of loaded and unloaded log lorries. The general notion is that major road repair work will wait until the forest is cleared.
• It is reckoned that it will take fifteen years to re-establish the forest. However, some proprietors have already decided to install photovoltaic panel ‘farms’ instead.
• 1.5 million tonnes of felled wood has been stocked in enormous depots. There, the wood is sprayed with water to minimise the appearance of mushrooms and mould, which lowers the aesthetic value of the wood.
• In total, it is said that 42 million m³, of which 37 million m³ was maritime pins, fell during Tempête Klaus.
• 12 million m³ of this wood has been used industrally by the end of 2009.
• 600,00 tonnes has been exported by train and boat. Boats leave Bayonne and Bordeaux for China and Turkey. Wood going to Europe (mostly Germany, Austria and Scandinavian countries) is travelling by 35 trains a week.

devastation photo essay

Here follows a short photo essay on the natural disaster (la catastrophe naturelle) that is Cylone Klaus.

First, soon before and after photos:

Above: Taken from near the same point, late January 2009

Left: A Landaise hut sheltered by 30 to 40-year-old pines,
reddened by the rising sun, 2007

email abelard at abelard.org

© abelard, 2009,09 february
v1.0

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the address for this document is http://www.abelard.org/france/les_landes_tempete_klaus.php

1230 words
prints as 7 A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)