La Tempete de 2009

Last Saturday morning, the Worst Storm in Europe in 100 Years swept through on the border of France and Spain. In France, Aquitaine (the region I live in) was hit hardest of all. On Friday afternoon in my Terroirs class, we could hear the wind picking up, sometimes so loud it drowned out the professor. By late that night the wind was even worse, and some rain had started to fall. However, being that I've been buried in upcoming exams, I didn't really notice, except to wake up around 4AM and think, "Wow. The wind sounds really strong." Little did I know...

It stormed all Saturday until late afternoon, when it finally died down to a steady downpour. Sunday morning dawned soggy but sunny, so I went on my run. My first indication that something was very wrong was the general state of the plaza. Ropes of lights, broken branches, and a metal barrier at a 90-degree angle to where it should have been. Then, I found out my park where I usually run was closed. Three scaffoldings I passed were just piles of scrap metal and wet wood. An old wall had distingegrated. Three large highway billboards were lying in the street, their advertisements torn into pieces and scattered. There was flooding everywhere, and I later learned that winds reached 80 mph in Bordeaux.

26 people died in this storm across, and hectares upon hectares of trees planted south of Bordeaux - sometimes as heritage investments for families - were flattened. Half a million people lost power. Most of the major trainlines stopped for a day. I was thankfully not affected myself that much, but this is definitely the worst natural disaster I have seen since coming to France.