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Only minor damage after mild wind storm
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November 28th, 2011
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No injuries and only limited property damage reported after almost hurricane force winds batter the country
Clean up crews had a busy night on Sunday responding to damages caused by the high winds that whipped across the country, though its impact was less than had been anticipated.
From Sunday morning through to 6am Monday, the privately owned emergency service company Falck was called out 849 times across Denmark, with 433 of those calls coming from northern Jutland, which was worst hit.
National road agency Vejdirektoratet was forced to close several bridges for traffic safety though all have since been reopened.
“It has been a very busy 24 hours, and we’ve had many phone calls, but there havenÂ’t been any serious accidents,” Torben Kristensen from the Vejdirektoratet told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “We managed to get the word out early and I think people have listened and stay in at home.”
Falck said it had been well prepared to respond to the winds created by the low pressure system that moved in off the Atlantic starting on Friday.
When the brunt of the storm hit the area north of Copenhagen Sunday evening, reporters were on the scene to let the public know (Image: DR)
“We have experienced conditions like this before and we’ll experience them again,” Falck spokesperson Jeppe Ilkær said. “It wasn’t an historic event but it was a busy day at the office.”
FalckÂ’s role has primarily been to clear fallen trees blocking roads and it anticipated that it would receive more calls on Monday as the true extent of the damage from the storm is realised.
Damage from fallen Christmas trees, grain silos and slurry tanks have all been reported, as well damaged incurred from dislodged roofing tiles. So far, though, there have not been any reports of injuries.
Police in northern Zealand also had a busy night after being called out to assist with several fires, evacuate passengers from an S-tog after a tree fell across the tracks and deal with a bus in Helsinge that had had been blown over.
The powerful wind and waves caused a ferry in southern Funen that sails to Ærø to become stuck on a sand bank, and despite efforts to pull it loose it was forced to spend the night at sea with 141 passengers on board.
Despite winds dying down last night, water levels in the Øresund remain dangerously high on Monday morning and threaten to rise even further throughout the course of the day.
Meteorologists forecast that the water level in Copenhagen Harbour will rise to 150 cm above normal, bringing the risk of flooding to low lying areas of the city.
Compared to previous weather events to have hit the country in recent years, yesterday’s could be considered relatively mild. After the January 2005 storm, some 10,500 damage reports were made, and a 1999 low pressure system that hit the country with hurricane-force winds racked up 17,000 calls.
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