« Reconstruite au 16 siècle et flanquée d'une haute tour Renaissance à lanternon, la cathédrale [de Blois] fut presque entièrement détruite en 1678 par un ouragan... »
“Rebuilt in the 16th century and flanked by a tall Renaissance bell tower, the [Blois] cathedral was almost entirely destroyed in 1678 by a hurricane...”
The quote above is from the Michelin Green Guide to the Châteaux de la Loire.
Let's hope it didn't happen again last night. I'm writing this on Thursday evening 12/15. Weather forecasts call for a strong windstorm — une tempête or "tempest" — that will hit northwestern France tonight, with gusts up to 85 mph on the coast and 70 mph here in the Saint-Aignan area.
City hall and the cathedral in Blois
The storm is named Joachim. Winter storms like this can be called "hurricanes" in French — ouragans — even though in English the term means a "tropical" storm. According to an article in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, 22 such storms have "devastated" France since the year 1700. And that doesn't include the one that destroyed the cathedral in Blois in 1678.
Another article I read today says there were terrible tempests in France in January 1362 (not a typo) and on the Toussaint holiday (Halloween) in 1570. The author says that the French government possesses very detailed records of such historical events because the national government was so well developed and centralized under the Old Regime — before the 1789 Revolution. Unfortunately, historians haven't yet done much research using the existing data.
Here's a graphic from an article in Le Figaro.
The latest severe storms in France were the Christmas 1999 ouragan, and the late-February 2010 storm named Xynthia. The '99 storm caused great damage to houses and trees, including in the park at Versailles and on the streets of Paris, and the '10 storm caused severe flooding on the Atlantic coast north of La Rochelle and 50 or more deaths by drowning.
Expect more news on Saturday from Saint-Aignan, where the shutters are all closed tight, all outdoor objects are moved indoors or tied down, and the residents are hoping for the best.
Remember the 1999 one well. We were on vacation in Florida and we made a routine phone call to our daughter's boyfriend, who said, "don't worry, doesn't look like you have any damage." We had no idea what he was talking about, so we turned on the TV and it was all the news!
ReplyDeleteWhen we got home, our neighbor across the street pointed out to us the empty spot on our roof! It took three years for the roofer to get around to us and replace the plastic sheet he had used as an emergency patch.
Can't believe how windy it has been here in the Charente - I thought the windows and the shutters were going to get blown into the house!
ReplyDeleteReading this made me worried. I called my parents in Aveyron but nobody answered the phone. I will try later, hoping everything is OK.
ReplyDeleteIn my 22 years spent in France, I do not remember at all those horrible storms. I hope your power outage doesn't last very long.
Hope you are OK up there Ken. I've only just reconnected the Livebox... the power has been wildly up and down this morning.
ReplyDeleteWe've got damage to the stable door into the grange...'twas very elderly [I'll nail it closed for the winter and repair it properly come the spring]. The bief is continuing to rise, though, as we are near the confluence of the Aigronne with the Claise and the rain left towards the source of the Aigronne.... it may well be still raining up there. The Aigronne has burst its banks over a few of the floodplain fields within sight of the house.
Our raingauge recorded 228mm in the last 24 hrs... I don't think so, somehow. The gauge works on a pair of rocking cups... I think they were wind assisted last night and rocked much more than they should... perhaps we'll get a traditional gauge to act as a corrector!
Hang in there! The weather is crazy mild here, it feels like Spring already.
ReplyDeleteSaw what was coming your way last night on the journal de 20 heures (watched on TV5 @ 18:30) - gust between 100-110 k.m.p over Centre.
ReplyDeleteHope everything is OK in Mareuil.
Hope you are safe and sound and keeping warm with the wood stove and comfort food cooked on the gas stove. Martine
ReplyDeleteHope you weathered Joachim without any damage. Looks like he blew all the pictures off 1.bp.blogspot.com - I'm sure Google will gather them back up...
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the storm!
ReplyDeleteJust a call from Ken at 6:45 PM, St-Aignan's time. They're both OK. No damage of any kind to the house or the yard. But their power is out and, of course, no internet. Power was supposed to be restored in the evening, but nothing yet. I'll be keeping you posted if I hear anything.
ReplyDeleteTo Harriet-Orbigny: Hi Harriet, Ken was unable to call your roofer, since the phone number you gave him was not in working order. All his phone numbers are in the computer [!] so he can't call you. Please call him. Thanks.
@chm - thanks for posting Ken and Walt's status. I have been thinking of them all morning. Great to hear their home suffered no damage.
ReplyDeleteme too thx for update
ReplyDeleteWow, all arrows point to St Aignan. Almost anyway. Good to hear you are both Ok. Sounds like you might be "camping" for a while with no electricity.
ReplyDeleteMerci Charles-Henry pour les nouvelles.
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking up on Ken and Walt. I hope their power is back soon. My day tomorrow will feel wrong if I don't get to read their blog.
ReplyDeleteI ran Walt and Ken this am - no power, but they have heat and cooking facilities. If they don't have power by lunchtime we will take our generator up there
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update, chm. Simon, great of you and Susan to offer the generator. :)
ReplyDeleteJudy
We got the electricity back today at 1:00 p.m., after a 30-hour outage. Simon, thanks for the offer of the generator. Everything here is fine now. Thanks to you too, CHM, for posting the comment. We were pretty discouraged yesterday afternoon when the electicity didn't come back on. Today we were invited by friends for an afternoon of dining, and their house was nice and warm. More tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteNadège, you are right, I lived in France from 1970 until 1982 and never saw weather like this. I hope your family and friends came through the storm with no damage or great inconvenience.
ReplyDeleteEllen, Walt and I came to Paris in January 2000 and were surprised to see a lot of street trees broken off or uprooted. That had to be quite a storm.
We feel very lucky, by the way, to have no trees down and no roof tiles blown off. Today was a beautiful (if chilly) day.
ReplyDeleteI'm just now reading all the updates and I feel so relieved that your power is back on and you didn't receive any lost tiles or trees.
ReplyDeleteMary in Oregon
Soulagée que vous vous en soyez bien sortis :-) !!!
ReplyDeleteThe "flame" in my boiler must have been turned out because of the strong wind which has been blowing for several days... Thus, I woke up last Thursday with no central heating, brrrr, we "say" in French... Fortunately, I was... working on that day and a friend of mine, who is a plumber, came home while I was still at work, and had the boiler fixed up, phew !!!
Bises to both of you :-)
Mary