Several injured as Storm Dennis rips through Germany
February 17, 2020
One week after Storm Sabine wreaked havoc in northern Germany, the offshoot Storm Dennis, named Victoria in Germany, swept across the country, causing accidents on Sunday and Monday.
Germany's weather service (DWD) said the storm had wind speeds of up to 172 kilometers per hour (107 miles per hour). Several people were injured in storm-related incidents, often involving forms of transport and fallen trees, though no deaths thus far have been reported.
The most serious accident occurred in Trippstadt, a town along Germany's border with France near Kaiserslautern. Seven men, aged 19 to 47, were injured after a man driving a vehicle crashed into a fallen tree shortly after 1:00 a.m. local time (midnight UTC), according to state police.
On Sunday morning, a 33-year-old woman was lightly injured after a gust of wind caused her to drive into a ditch in Schneverdingen, a town in Lower Saxony between Bremen and Hamburg. Later that evening, a 21-year-old female driver and a 20-year-old male passenger were injured when the woman crashed into a fallen tree in the Güstrow forest, near the northeastern city of Rostock.
Trapped on the train
Also on Sunday, a commuter train in Dortmund crashed into a fallen tree, trapping the 67 passengers on board until they were able to leave the train at 10:30 p.m. local time. None of the passengers, which included children and elderly people, were injured.
Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway service, closed several lines from Sunday evening to Monday morning so workers could clean up the storm damage.
In Hamburg, the St. Pauli fish market was flooded for the second time this month, with high tide measuring 4.15 meters (13.6 feet) above sea level — about two meters higher than the average high tide. Flooding also hit German's northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein.
The DWD expects it to remain windy and stormy, especially in the north, before more calm weather rolls in in the coming days.
Further heavy rain expected in UK
In the United Kingdom, the Met Office, the British weather service, warned of heavy rain in the wake of Storm Dennis, which raged across the British Isles over the weekend.
"Although the severe weather associated with Storm Dennis has passed, there is further wet and windy weather to come this week," the Met Office said in a press release.
A record 594 flood warnings were raised across the country. Some residents in Wales were told to evacuate their homes within 48 hours. On Sunday, Britain deployed the army to help deal with high winds.
The Met Office said to expect "blustery showers" on Monday and Tuesday, with some snow forecast in areas of higher elevation. "Rain and increasingly strong winds" were also predicted for Wednesday.
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