L'ile de re part 2

Last fall we visited an island on the Atlantic call L'ile de re. See the post from September 21, 2009. The evening of February 28 a huge storm struck the Atlantic coast and created a lot of damage inland. Some of you emailed us to see if we were 'OK'. The storm called 'Xynthia' went north of Toulouse and missed us.

Xynthia hit during high tide and L'ile de re was devastated. When we visited, it was one large connected island with nice roads, bike and walking paths everywhere. It is considered a vacation destination and is filled with lovely, well cared for homes and streets. Now, the island has returned to its original form of 3 separate islands. In the process, most of the harbors were destroyed and its boats were heavily damaged or simply carried out to sea. Most of the storm walls and dikes broke and all the streets were flooded.


Here are some pictures we took last fall.























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Here are some pictures from various news sources of what it looked like after the storm.

Flooded streets..


What is left of the harbor...


One of the roads between the towns....


Destroyed Vineyard....

Some of the locals have said that the people who own property there are simply walking away from it and have no plans to return. How sad.