On Friday the 23rd January we went over to Marciac to meet up with our friends, Kate and Peter, on the restaurant boat, La Peniche, on the lake at Marciac. We had had a lot of rain and went through some heavy rain on the way there. Many low lying areas were flooded and the ditches were full. After a very pleasant lunch we had a chat with the proprietors and Madame said that a “tempete” was forecast for the coming night. When we got home I thought that I had better see what the forecast was and was so pleased that I had had the foresight to do so. It seemed that our department, Les Landes, was under red alert. Strong winds and gusts of up to 160kms an hour were forecast starting at about 4a.m. Nigel went out and unearthed the gas cylinder and 2 burner camping stove and I got out the torches and candles. We also filled lots of receptacles and half of the bath with water as if the power were to go off there would be no electricity to pump water up to the water tower. We put the car in the shelter of the hedge and away from the house in case of falling tiles. Memories of the tempete of 1999, when we were at Carol, were still quite vivid and we were just hoping that it wasn’t going to be as bad as it was then.
I woke at 4.40 for my nightly trip to the toilet, the wind was howling but the electric was still on. Once I had got to the toilet the light went out, came back and then went out again permanently. Groping my way back to bed I found that Nigel was now awake and that it was impossible to go back to sleep again for the noise of the wind and worrying about what was happening outside. After a while Nigel got up and made a cup of tea, we were so pleased that we had got the gas burner set up before we went to bed. As daylight dawned the wind was still howling and on visiting the toilet again I looked out the window and saw that 6 of our 9 poplars at the back of the house were lying on the ground. Such a relief that they hadn’t hit the house. They had come out by the roots as the ground was so wet, a fate we were to learn that had befallen so many other trees in Les Landes(about 60% according to some reports). We had closed the shutters on all the other windows so it was only on opening them that we could see the devastation outside. Our big pine tree out the front was on the floor along with an old pear tree, thankfully the magnolia and the silk tree were spared. At the side of the house a cherry tree in the hedge had fallen, just missing the car. The big oak trees at the front gate were still standing but had lost quite a lot of small branches. The first time that I looked over the road I could see our neighbours beautiful silver birches swaying violently, the next time that I looked they too had fallen to the ground, pulled out by their roots.
Our only contact with the outside world was the battery powered radio and the local radio station was telling people to stay indoors until the storm bated which it was forecast to do at about midday. Roads were blocked by falling trees, all lorries had been banned from circulating and even the emergency services were unable to do a lot as they couldn’t get far because of the fallen trees. They were telling everyone not to try to get to work and that the whole of the shops in Mont de Marsan would be closed for the day. Of course the phone lines were down in many places and the mobile network was not working either. The storm did indeed calm down somewhat, as forecast, and neighbours emerged from their houses. I finally managed to get Rambo to go outside but with some difficulty, he was very upset by the noise of the wind. Luna, being deaf, had crept out earlier but was soon back in again. We inspected the damage in the garden but it was not until later in the afternoon that we saw the full extent of the damage in our part of Perron. Jeanette and Cristal who live immediately above us had a beautiful garden but now it was completely devasted. Several of their pine trees were lying across the road and had brought down the telephone line. Many others were down in the garden or lying crazily at half-mast on other trees. By some good fortune their house had not been damaged. Alain and Dominic were soon out with their chain saws clearing the road as best they could. When I walked up, with the dogs, they had made a way through the fallen trees and we had a chat. Phillipe, our neighbour and a fireman in Mont de Marsan, had been on duty since 6am the previous day and had only just got back, it had taken him 2 hours to do so instead of the normal 20 minutes. Cristal was telling me how frightened she and her mother had been when they heard the trees crashing all around them. Everywhere one looks there are trees lying on the ground or at angles against other trees which have been spared. Listening to the radio it became apparent that Les Landes had suffered badly from the storm. 3 people were killed by falling trees, 60% of the Landes forest, the biggest in Europe, is lying on the ground, camp sites and holiday villages on the coast are devastated and many thousands of the free range chickens have been killed. 200,000 people are without electric and many people without telephone. It was reported that the severity of the storm and the damage that it had caused was much worse than in 1999. So, as we settled down to the first night without electric and a meal cooked on the camping stove, we were pleased that the storm was over and that we had sustained no damage to the house or to ourselves.
Thankfully we had had the insert, wood-burning stove, installed at the beginning of the month so we were able to keep warm. Had the storm been earlier it would have been much worse as of course we couldn’t have used the central heating.
On Sunday Nigel started sawing up the trees that had come down in the front garden and I dragged the branches up to the bonfire. The normal sounds of the countryside had been drowned by the sound of chainsaws and generators. A few birds appeared but it soon became apparent that they had dropped in numbers. I walked the dogs around the village and numerous trees were down and sheets of corrugated iron lying in the ditches. The houses all seemed to be without major damage apart from the loss of some tiles from the roofs.
On Monday morning I went into Grenade, our nearest small town. The main road was littered with branches and in one place a tree was suspended across the road, it’s top branches supported by a tree at the other side of the road. The forest at either side of the road was hardly recognisable, many of the trees pulled out at the roots others snapped off half way up their trunks. I had to go the vets to pick up some insulin for Luna and when I got there I saw that the large plane tree in front of the clinic had fallen across the roof of the clinic. Both vets had just arrived and were carrying a generator inside. The town was without electric and most of the shops were shut. I went into the paper shop to get a local paper and asked if there was any bread in town. Apparently Le Clerc was open but another customer told me that they had no bread.
As the week went by, slowly things got back to normal or as normal as it was going to be for some time. Alain brought his generator over on Monday morning so that we could keep the freezer going. He continued to do so for a couple of hours each morning and we were also able to heat up the hot water tank and, by Wednesday, to have a welcome shower. On Wednesday we went into Aire as Nigel had a dental appointment. We weren’t sure if the dentist would be operational but he was as the electric had been restored there. In the afternoon we went into Mont de Marsan and toured the town looking for candles. We finally found some in Carrefour, it appeared that they had had a special delivery of candles and nightlights. Such a relief as we were running low. Dining by candlelight had lost its romance by now but there was no option. The first couple of days, without electric, seemed a bit of an adventure, days 3 and 4 were the worst and then it seemed to become the norm. The lack of TV was a pain but we played Scrabble and cards in the evenings and went to bed relatively early. Cooking on the camping stove wasn’t a problem, after all I did it for 3 months when we were in the camper van!
The mobile phone had been working somewhat erratically for a few days and I had been able to get the odd text through to friends and family to let them know that we were OK. By Friday it finally seemed to be more stable. I had texted Kate and she asked us over on Saturday for lunch and a shower and also to take some washing to put in her machine. They live near Lannemazan, about 1 ½ hours from here and although they too had had the storm it was much less damaging than it was here. On Saturday morning we had just got up when Alain came round to tell us that the electric was on again. Apparently it was restored at 10.30 on Friday evening but by then we were in bed. What joy!! We still went over to Kate and Peter’s and had a wonderful roast lunch and a long chat before making our way back to our newly restored electric.
3 weeks later we finally got our phone line restored and the area is slowly getting back to normal. In neighbours gardens the trees have been sawn and lie in neat piles around their gardens. However for many people who live on the other side of Mont de Marsan it will be a long time before the damage that the storm caused will be sorted out. The holiday villages and camp sites may not be able to open this year. The forest will take a generation, if it is ever replanted, to get back to what it was.
