Back-to-back storms Boelo and Austen kill one and black out 150,000 European homes
Twin weather systems struck the region within a day, leaving 59,000 French homes dark and forcing a German hospital to restrict care to emergencies.
By Andrew Kovalenko ·
One man died and more than 150,000 homes lost electricity in northern Europe after storms Boelo and Austen passed through the region in rapid succession on Sunday and Saturday.
A 60-year-old man in southwestern Scotland died when a tree fell on him, according to the Press Association. Two women in central Scotland were injured by a different falling tree. Winds reached 135 km/h (84 mph) in the Argyll and Bute areas of western Scotland, bringing down trees and power cables that blocked roads and rail lines across Scotland and northern England.
The United Kingdom reported the highest outage total, with more than 82,000 homes without power on Sunday. In France, energy company Enedis stated that 288,000 homes lost electricity at the peak of Storm Austen on Saturday. By midday Sunday, 59,000 homes, mainly in Normandy and Brittany, remained dark. A marathon runner in northern France was lightly injured by a tree knocked over by the wind.
In Germany, Storm Austen cut power to 10,000 homes in and around Freiburg-Breisgau on Sunday. The town’s main hospital limited services to emergency cases due to the blackout, which also interrupted mobile phone service. German police reported that two people were seriously injured on Saturday when scaffolding blown by the wind hit a market in Nastatten. The storms also affected the Netherlands and Belgium, where falling trees injured four people in Brussels.
Travel disruptions spread across the continent. Hundreds of flights were cancelled or diverted, including at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. In the Netherlands, three crew members on a freight ship north of Schiermonnikoog were injured. Two were winched off the vessel and transported by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland.
The United Kingdom’s Met Office warned that Storm Boelo posed a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves. The agency advised people to stay indoors as much as possible. Authorities in Scotland and England also warned of flood risks in specific regions. In Brighton, on England’s southern coast, Storm Austen blew away an unused pier on Friday.
