The worst storm in decades has reached the English Channel, it has its first victim

The storm in the British Channel Islands is expected to be the worst in 36 years, the BBC writes. Ferry traffic across the English Channel is significantly limited, and flood warnings are in effect in the south of England. Planes do not fly to the British islands of Guernsey and Jersey, near France.

In Jersey, coastal roads, airports and schools are closed. There are 200-ton sandbags spread along the southern coast of the island. Authorities on the island, as well as in neighboring Guernsey, are asking locals not to hoard food from supermarkets.

In France, Ciarán had the strongest impact on the coastal and westernmost French department of Finistère, where according to BFMTV, a wave of 21 meters was recorded near the coast. Firefighters have already completed hundreds of interventions and 43 families in the area were evacuated in advance. In time, the department issued a ban on the use of roads due to fallen trees, electrical and telephone lines.

In the largest city of the department of Brest, the wind defeated a crane and with a speed of 156 kilometers per hour, it broke a 36-year-old record. A number of videos from the night are appearing on social media showing fallen trees in the city.

So far, Ciarán has one victim in the French department of Aisne, where a tree fell on a truck and the driver did not survive the accident, AFP reported with reference to firefighters.

In total, at least 300 schools have closed in Britain, most of them in the counties of Devon and Cornwall on the south-western tip of England, where rail transport is also severely limited and 7,000 households in Cornwall alone are without power. Southern, Gatwick Express and Thameslink, which operate trains south of London, have asked their passengers to work from home if possible.

“Trampoline now coming to track number four,” Southeastern Transportation Company wrote in a humorous post on the X Network alongside a photo of a trampoline blown from someone’s garden blocking the track.