Xynthia

Yesterday night started calmly enough: We went to bed around 10.30 and I wondered if the storm was a false alarm. I woke several times and the wind was blowing and then not. At two thirty the storm was really raging, the trees quite close to the roof were making a lot of noise. I couldn’t sleep, so an hour later I got up to make a cup of tea, just as the kettle boiled the electricity went of and a few minutes later Olivier came in. He had only been two minutes away normally but he got home a lot quicker!!

We woke around seven (I say woke, but we’d hardly slept at all) and the electricity was still off - it came back on just before 9. Once we’d had breakfast and cleared one or two small branches from the foot path we could see there was very little damage around us and the roof was fine.

Like 1999 the sea had come over and across the marshes. The bottom of the road parallel to ours was submerged. We walked round to the beach on the higher road and there was a lot of damage and a lot of water. Roads into the village were flooded and an old path used mainly by hunters had fallen into the water. There was more water damage because it was an exceptionally high tide. One tree had fallen in the park.

The port of La Rochelle is flooded, as well as the station. People the other side of town were rescued from their roofs by helicopter Water has got into the basement at the Chain tower and caused a lot of damage. Rob’s spare bike he kept there is soaked. Fortunately he’s not working today. He did take some photos but there is a problem with his camera so we have lost them all…

One of Olivier’s friends took his bag for him on Thursday when he knocked himself out. He bought it home for the weekend and his house has been flooded so Olivier has probably lost all the notes etc which would have been in his bag for his lectures on Thursday.

It’s still windy, but pleasantly so and the sun is shining, a lovely afternoon for a long walk.