A balcony blown off a house in Jersey, flooding of homes in Guernsey, trees down right across the Channel Islands, and cars smashed up by a breach in the sea wall – the clean up from a night and morning of wild weather has begun.
Jersey Met report the highest recorded wave measured 7.7 metres of 25 feet from a data buoy six miles south of St Brelade, with high tide in St Helier reaching 12.01 metres.
The high tide, at round 7am (Wednesday), followed a red alert warning for storm force gusts combined with an unusually high tide with Guernsey’s west coast (pictured above) and Jersey’s south coast bearing the brunt.
At its peak, Victoria Avenue and the Havre des Pas coast road were closed in Jersey along with the Perelle Coast Road in Guernsey, with emergency services responding to multiple reports of trees down, roads flooded, debris thrown across sea walls, and even a balcony blown off a house overnight. See our live coverage as the morning unfolded here.
But while some began the recovery effort, others were making the most of the situation, with Joe Ellis capturing this video of friends going boating in their back garden on Rue des Goddards in Guernsey!
Andium Homes put its maintenance team on alert with contractors ready to respond to storm damage.
During the course of the morning a shipping container was spotted adrift off Jersey’s east coast, with the coastguard warning sea users that it was drifting north east.
Businesses were faced with a clean up operation, as water breached defences, and wind blew awnings off shop fronts.
There’s no post from the UK in Guernsey today, with Guernsey Post reporting the winds were too strong to unload the mail plane which had managed to land. They’ll go out with tomorrow’s delivering instead.
Jersey’s Chief Minister, Senator Ian Gorst, said: “A big thank you to the emergency services, honorary police, other volunteers and good neighbours who’ve been working to keep us safe through this storm. Take care all.”
Guernsey’s Chief Minister, Deputy Gavin St Pier, said: “Thanks to all those working to keep the island safe during Storm Eleanor as it continues to blow: emergency services, States Works and civil protection volunteers.”
A fresh weather warning has been issued ahead of Thursday morning’s high tide. The red flood warning precedes a combination of gale force winds and an 11.7m high tide in Jersey and a 9.9m high tide in Guernsey expected to – again – affect Jersey’s south and Guernsey’s west coasts.
