European Coastal Defenses May Reduce Destruction from Epic Storm: Scientific American
Dubbed Windstorm Xaver by the Free University Berlin, last week's storm
wreaked havoc across Europe. Scheduled train travel was halted in
Scotland, Germany and Denmark when fallen trees and landslides blocked
rail lines. Glasgow's central train station was evacuated after debris
smashed through a glass roof.
A cliff in Hemsby, England, collapsed, causing houses to slide into the
ocean below. In Rhyl, North Wales, elderly residents were evacuated from
their homes in inflatable boats.
More than 29,000 customers lost electricity in Ireland when winds
gusting up to 70 mph blew through communities in the northern and
eastern parts of the country.
In Poland, three people died in the village of Poraj when a tree fell
onto their car. Winds reached 85 mph throughout the northern part of the
country. Firefighters responded to more than 1,500 emergency calls.
Winds caused more than 400,000 customers to lose electricity.
Storm surges reach 20 feet
In Hamburg, Germany, water levels rose to 13 feet above the normal high tide level. Parts of the city center and port areas were flooded.
At its highest level, the morning of Dec. 6, the tidal surge measured 20
feet above sea level, according to a Hamburg official, the highest it
has been since the early 1990s.
Fortunately for many Europeans, the last 60 years have seen vast
improvements in tidal defenses. Last week, the Thames barrier was closed
for two days to protect residents of low-lying areas around greater
London and the Thames estuary.
At its highest, the storm surge caused a 6-foot-plus difference in water
height between the downriver and upriver sides of the barrier. In Hull,
according to a report on the Climate Central website, the level of the
River Humber rose to a record high of 19 feet on the night of Dec. 5.
Flooding was stemmed by a barrier that has been in place since 1980.
In the Netherlands, the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, a complex
of dams, sluices and dikes built to protect the large area of land
around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, was closed off for the first time
in six years.
Dutch authorities said they had issued the highest possible flood
warning for four areas in the north of the country. In the southwestern
province of Zeeland, officials reported that the North Sea had risen by
13 feet, the highest level since 1953.
Damage estimates lag
Estimates of the magnitude of losses generated by Xaver will be several
days in coming. Insurance brokers, reinsurers and risk modeling firms
say it is too early to speculate. A spokesman for Aviva, the United
Kingdom's largest insurance company, said, "The impact is still being
measured on the ground. We're assessing and monitoring areas affected."
According to Brian Owens, senior director of risk modeling firm Risk
Management Solutions, better infrastructure defenses as well as the
relatively brief duration of the surge events protected most developed
regions from Xaver's impact. Owens was quoted in a report on the website
Artemis.bm, which covers the alternative risk transfer, catastrophe
bond and insurance linked security markets,
On Twitter, Swiss Re's natural catastrophe team leader, Andreas Schraft, said: "Too early for loss estimates."
With Xaver, the trend in severe weather across Europe seems to be continuing. In a Dec. 6 report in the Irish newspaper Independent.ie, Ray McGrath, of Met Eireann's research department, pointed out that "global warming" does not simply mean temperatures are going to go up. Trends in extreme weather of all kinds, he said, are expected to worsen.
According to figures compiled by the Irish Insurance Federation, since
2010, extreme weather conditions have cost Ireland more than €1billion
($1.37 billion) in property damage alone. Across Europe, the cost of
damage from extreme weather events has risen by more than 60 percent in
the last 30 years, according to a report by the European Academies
Science Advisory Council released in November.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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