Three departments in the northwest have been on gradual alert since midnight to face Storm Ciaran, which reached the tip of Brittany in the evening, causing initial damage and minor injuries.
• Also read: A tip of northwestern Europe will be exposed to Storm Ciaran
Finistère switched to wind-red vigilance at midnight. The Côtes-d’Armor follows at 2 a.m. and the Manche an hour later.
In Morbihan, gusts of almost 140 km/h were recorded on the island of Groix, said the Morbihan prefecture, which reported about a hundred fallen trees and the collapse of the roof of a restaurant in Arzon.
Finistère regrets a minor injury following a traffic accident caused by a falling tree in Plouédern, the prefecture announces.
By the end of the evening, firefighters had intervened around thirty times and around forty people were evacuated as a preventative measure, including residents of around twenty houses in Treffiagat, after the line of dunes in the area was weakened during last weekend’s flood.
The prefecture also reports X “power outages and power line failures.”
According to Ouest-France, planes that got into trouble because of the wind over Nantes airport were eventually diverted to Toulouse.
Emmanuel Macron joined the numerous messages from the authorities on Wednesday evening urging caution in the face of this climatic event. “Do not take any risks. Stay home and check on your isolated loved ones,” he wrote on social media.
The winds that have been hitting Brittany since midnight could reach gusts of 170 km/h in the following hours off the Brittany tip and Cotentin. Inland they could explode at speeds of up to 150 km/h. Waves of eight to ten meters are expected on part of the Atlantic coast.
The number of departments placed under orange alert due to wave overtopping, wind or rain flooding has increased from 17 to 31.
🌀 Storm Ciarán strengthens in Brittany. We have already measured 148 km/h at Pointe Saint-Mathieu (29) and 134 km/h at Belle-Île (56)! Pictures of Carnac. 🌊 (via @Viewsurf) pic.twitter.com/oAVvNfVdlq
— Meteo Express (@MeteoExpress) November 1, 2023
The new orange departments include part of Île-de-France, including Paris, due to strong winds.
The entire coastline from Pas-de-Calais to the Pyrénées-Atlantique is now on alert for Thursday, as are Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and the Alpes-Maritimes. The orange alert for thunderstorms and rain floods also applies in the south of Corsica.
According to public security spokesman Arnaud Wilm, interviewed on BFMTV, 12,500 firefighters are deployed in France to combat Ciaran.
“Heavy weights forbidden”
Almost everywhere along the coast, calls for caution are increasing, especially for hikers and boaters.
Particularly due to the risk of falling trees due to strong winds, the transport sector in the west of the country will operate slowly on Thursday.
“In the road sector, we have taken measures through the prefectures to ban the movement of heavy commercial vehicles (…). This will continue throughout the day on Thursday, particularly across the Brittany region,” said the Transport Minister. Clement Beaune.
The Interior Ministry then clarified that Ille-et-Vilaine, which was on alert, was not affected by this traffic ban.
The SNCF announced that it would plan “preventive stops of rail traffic” on part of the RER A, several Transilien lines (L, J, U and partly N) and the T13 tram on Thursday morning.
In particular, Brest and Quimper airports “will not be operational between the end of the afternoon and at least tomorrow morning,” he added.
For trains, TER services will be suspended in Brittany, Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Pays de la Loire and Centre-Val de Loire from Wednesday evening to Friday morning. When 90% of TGVs operate, traffic on the Paris-Le Mans and Paris-Nantes axes will be suspended.
In addition to the winds, Météo-France fears a “rainfall episode that will lead to significant amounts of precipitation in a short period of time on already saturated soils,” with trees that are still very leafy in particular likely to fall.
“Powerful waves”
The weather agency also warns that the storm will cause a “remarkable wave overtopping phenomenon (…). The breaking of large and powerful waves associated with relatively high sea levels requires special vigilance.”
These flood waves are particularly devastating on the coast, where careless walkers are regularly swept away.
In Biarritz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) the wave warning system was used on the coast.
At the peak of the alert, expected in this city between 4 and 11 p.m. on Thursday, access to beaches, promenades and exposed waterfront properties, as well as water activities, will be prohibited. A continuous line of protective sandbags, known as “big bags,” were placed.
Britain is also preparing for Ciaran’s arrival, including in the southwest tip and Wales.
Extreme weather events (cyclones, heat waves, floods, droughts, etc.) are natural phenomena. But global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities can exacerbate them.
More specifically, as regards the wave flooding phenomena on the coasts, they risk becoming more dangerous with sea level rise linked to ice melt, especially during storms.