The best way to enjoy yesterday was surely inside
Translated by Thomas Ansell
Yesterday, Sunday, Storm Ciara hit the Northern Netherlands. In the morning various church services were cancelled, and then in the afternoon the Aqua Zoo in Leeuwarden was shut to protect animals. Meanwhile the ‘Meldkamer Noord-Nederland’, which deals with fast-moving issues in the region, said that it had had more than three-hundred submissions of dangerous circumstances. The Gemeente Leeuwarden alone was responsible for 90 submissions, and the city shut both the Lange Marktstraat and the Douwe Kalmaleane in the city centre. As reported by the Friesch Dagblad.
In Heerenveen, an apartment block had to be evacuated due to the roof starting to be torn off by high winds. The building sits on the K.R. Poststraat, and was built in 1995, and its residents had to spend last night in a hotel. In Ferwerd (gemeente Ferwerderadiel), the stone dug-outs at FC Wardy were blown over, but no-one was injured.
Leeuwarden’s Lange Markstraat experienced a hail of stone pieces from an Achmea building; “it was not the heavy marble slabs of the tower, but stone from a blue building near by”, said gemeente spokesperson Fijke van Berkom. Just after the tower was finished in 2000, stone slabs fell off several times, with each having a weight of around 100 kilos.
The Douwe Kalmealeane was shut due to falling trees, closing the Piter Jelles Montessori and !mpulse school. The Gealanden was also shut due to a tree, “after that we had a number of reports of falling building material, and knocked over portable toilets”, said gemeente spokesperson Margriet Dankert. There were also large numbers of places that were affected by trees being blown over, inluding Schiermonnikoog.
Ciara was the first named storm to hit the Netherlands, but was not quite a heavy as expected. Wind speeds did not quite hit those predicted, but Vlieland did experience 133 km/h winds. During a storm in October 2013, the island experienced a new record wind speed of 151 km/h. Terschelling, on the other hand, was battered by 120 km/h winds.
Image via Flickr User James O’Keefe. License here.
