High Winds Tear Through Northern Europe

Powerful storms swept across Europe on Sunday that left at least 13 people dead, caused major transportation delays, damaged homes and businesses, and kept hundreds of thousands of people in the dark when their power went out. Reporters have called this one of the most powerful storms in Europe in years. The United Kingdom was hit the worst as winds gusted up to 99 miles per hour. Five people were killed in the UK alone caused by the storm.

Train companies were shut down and planes flying into Gatwick, Stansted, and Heathrow airports were delayed for some time. This was a powerful storm folks! People interviewed today said they could not recall having winds whipping that strong since the 1987 storm that brought 115 m.p.h. winds to the UK. 

 It is funny, you can read about this storm online and you can read through my other posts on environmental hazards on this blog, but it is different when you feel directly related to the storm. Yesterday my girlfriend was trying to fly into London from Dublin, Ireland and planes were delayed all over the airport. When her plane finally touched down in London, train services were down and people, including my girlfriend, had to find alternate routes of transportation. The train service to Stansted Airport I planned to take in late November looks like it will still be out of service and I have made alternate plans to travel by bus at that time. 

I have been fortunate to have never been caught in the middle of a large environmental hazard. Part of that is that I do not live in an area that has frequent hazards, but the threat is always there for something to happen. It just puts it in a different perspective when you are following the storm online and hoping people you care about are going to be able to avoid powerful storms like this. 

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/world/europe/powerful-storm-blasts-northern-europe.html?_r=0