Second January flood 1976

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Second storm surge in 1976
Storm Storm ( Atlantic low , Scandinavian type )
Flood Very severe storm surge
Data
education January 20, 1976
Tide peak January 21, second half of the night
The End 22nd January 1976
Flood (since) 4. highest status ( Havneby , u. A., Measured since 1825 )
consequences
affected areas North Sea coast , Elbe estuary
Victim no
First storm surge in 1976: Capella storm

The second flood of January 1976 on the night of January 20 to 21, 1976 was one of the highest storm surges of the 20th century on the German and Danish North Sea coasts and the Elbe area . 17 days earlier, on January 3rd, the first flood of January 1976, which was only slightly stronger, occurred due to the Capella hurricane , which in many areas was the highest storm surge of the 20th century.

Development of the weather situation

The storm surge of January 21, 1976 marked the end of a westerly wind situation that had persisted since December 1975. The climax of this weather situation was the Capella hurricane on January 3, 1976.

The starting point for the development of the weather situation leading to the storm surge was the western Atlantic off the American east coast and Greenland. Here on January 19, 1976, warm, subtropical air pushed far north. At the same time, to the west of it, very cold polar cold air from the area of ​​Greenland / Northern Canada penetrated south. Under these conditions, a low formed which, with rapid deepening, slowly moved from the Iceland area across the European Northern Sea to southern Sweden. On the back of the hurricane low, the Azores high intensified, so that a very strong north-westerly current set in and the polar cold air on the back could penetrate as far as Central Europe. A very sharp air pressure gradient developed.

Due to its spatial size and the low speed of the train, the low was able to form a very large storm field, which on January 20, 1976 reached from southern Greenland into the German Bight. As a result, a very severe storm surge had to be expected on the German North Sea coast, although the peak wind speeds in the German Bight did not reach the values ​​by far as with the Capella hurricane or the Adolph Bermpohl hurricane of 1967.

The strongest hurricane gusts came through at the time of the low water, in some places, for example on the Halligen on the North Frisian coast, the tide still ran higher than in the devastating storm surge in 1962 , sometimes in the area or higher than the Capella flood.

In Bremerhaven a water level of 4.91 m above sea ​​level was registered (only 40 cm below the 1962 record). The Hallig Hooge measured 9.12 m above sea level (2.5 m Mthw , only 2 cm below the highest level ever measured).

In Havneby on Rømø, for example, the tide was higher than the first January event (and also the fourth highest event since 1825 ).

One month later, on February 23, there was another severe but significantly lower storm surge (Büsum NN + 4.04 m).

Events and consequences

The damage remained comparatively small because after 1962 many dikes on the North Sea coast had been reinforced. On Sylt, for example, where the level was as high as in 1962, the new dykes only held with an additional sandbag cover. In some places the dykes, which were only poorly repaired after the first January event, broke again.

In the evening at 7.30 p.m. a water level of 4.50 meters above normal high water was predicted for the Halligen. Many people had previously carried the mud out of their houses for days and now had to leave their homes again when the disaster management team in Husum triggered a full alarm at 0.30 a.m. Even if the water on the coast was not as high as feared, it was higher on some Halligen than on January 3rd. Many of the Halligen were again under water.

On Amrum and Föhr , 20 centimeters more water was measured than 17 days ago. New major damage occurred on Amrum. Land demolitions took place on the south beach of Wyk auf Föhr , but the Wyker beach wall and the pre-washings proved their worth as on January 3rd. In Steenodde ten houses were threatened by an imminent breakthrough dunes that but then stayed away.

Although the level in Husum was 78 centimeters lower than on January 3rd and 33 centimeters lower than in 1962, the disaster management team ordered the evacuation of the Grothusenkoog in Eiderstedt . However, its 25 residents refused to leave the Koog and preferred to stay with their cattle. At Westerhever , three firefighters were in danger; They were blown from the dike into the water by the hurricane, but were able to save themselves again on their own.

On Sylt, four meters were torn from the cliff near List and the beach hall was now only 30 meters away from the edge of the demolition. The water level at Hörnum was higher than on January 3, and there was again great danger for the border area north of the Hindenburg dam .

In Denmark, the new Friedrichskoog near Højer Sogn and the Rutebüllkoog was evacuated, over 500 sick and old people were brought to safety from Tønder and the evacuation was ordered again for the 7500 inhabitants. As a precaution, a long train was waiting at the station.

In the Haseldorfer Marsch , on the northern edge of the Elbe estuary, the dikes between Holm and Hetlingen , which had been destroyed after the first January flood, were not completely closed until January 20th . Due to the anticipated masses of water, the situation deteriorated dramatically on the night of January 20th to 21st. It was calculated with heights of 4 to 4.50 meters above the mean flood. Around 6 p.m. soldiers formed a chain of sandbags and reinforced the inner slopes of the broken dike. As a precautionary measure, the evacuation in the Haseldorfer Marsch began at 8 p.m. on January 20th. By 1 a.m. all lower-lying farmsteads had been cleared of people and animals. Due to the flood reports from Cuxhaven , the disaster alarm was triggered at 2:30 a.m. Around 4 a.m., the Bundeswehr evacuation buses and police vehicles were withdrawn from the march so that they would not be trapped in the event of renewed flooding. At 6 a.m. the water masses reached a height of 3.87 meters above MTHW, but the patched dikes withstood the water masses and the all-clear could be given again.

In Kehdinger Land near Dornbusch in Lower Saxony's Elbe region, a piece of dyke broke that had only been poorly repaired after the first January flood. There were again major water ingresses inland. However, the consequences were limited here.

This storm surge had a particularly severe impact on the warehouse operations in the Hamburg port area and the adjacent areas where the dikes were broken on January 3rd. As a result of construction work that began immediately, most of the dyke breaches had been closed or patched up, but industrial and storage halls in Hamburg and other neighboring areas were flooded meters high.

reporting

Although the second January event was probably one of the highest North Sea floods of the 20th century, it went surprisingly unnoticed. In 2005, Bernd Rieken pointed out that, for example, Die Welt and the Süddeutsche Zeitung , each from January 22nd, largely limited their reporting to the front page of an issue. The author puts this in the context of the fact that the first flood in 1976 was already seen as a successful experience of the “feasibility” mentality of the 1970s - while at the event of 1962 “sounds critical of civilization” were still to be found and even the quotation of “God's hint” - and notes that "it need not come as a surprise [... that it] has only caused a small echo in the national press".

literature

  • Marcus Petersen, Hans Rohde: Storm surge - The great floods on the coasts of Schleswig-Holstein and in the Elbe . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1977, ISBN 3-529-06163-8 .
  • Heinrich Kruhl: The storm weather conditions in January 1976. In: Coastal Committee North and Baltic Sea: The coast; Archive for research and technology on the North and Baltic Seas. Issue 30, Westholsteinische Verlagsanstalt, 1976.
  • F.-F. Zitscher, R. Scherenberg, U. Varow: The storm surge of January 3rd and 21st, 1976 on the coasts of Schleswig-Holstein. In: The coast. Issue 33, pp. 71-99.
  • The major storm surges since 1962 on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein . 6th edition. Husum Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-88042-183-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The name is already implicitly given by Kruhl 1976 and Zitscher et al. 1976, or explicitly Horst Güntheroth: The North Sea: Portrait of a Threatened Sea. Verlag Gruner + Jahr, 1986, ISBN 3-570-07168-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ^ Heinrich Kruhl: Storm surge weather conditions of the last decades. 1977 In: Yearbook of the Hafenbautechnischen Gesellschaft vol. 1975/67. Hamburg, pp. 337-349.
  3. ↑ 30 years ago: Storm surge on January 3rd and January 21st, 1976. In: Wir Strukumer - information from our community. No. 6/2006, p. 4 ( pdf , struckum.de).
  4. ↑ a b c d Storm surges on the North Sea from the year 838 Storm surge - what does it mean? ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. gezeiten.shz.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gezeiten.shz.de
  5. ↑ 5.35 m above sea level, fishing port double lock.
  6. ^ Tyskland and Danmark. Vadehavet II. Stormfloderne i Vadehavet , Bent Hansen, bentsbane.dk, October 1, 2013; accessed December 13, 2013.
  7. ↑ see Büsum 9510095 , pegelonline.wsv.de
  8. ↑ Stormflod og stormflodsøjler. Stormflodssøjlen i Havneby ( Memento from December 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (on the Havneby flood column; doc, mitvadehav.dk).
  9. ↑ http://www.sylt-ferieninsel.de/sturmfluten.htm (link not available)
  10. ↑ Entry January 21, 1976 Weather Chronicle, wetterzentrale.de.
  11. ↑ The great storm surges. Husum Verlag, 1995.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f The great storm surges. Husum Verlag, 1995, p. 38.
  13. ^ A b c Uetersen Nachrichten: January 3, 1976 Haseldorfer March . A documentation of the Uetersener Nachrichten , Heydorn Verlag, Uetersen 1976, p. 24.
  14. ^ The history of the Drochtersen volunteer fire brigade ( Memento from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Website of the Drochtersen Volunteer Fire Brigade . Retrieved August 9, 2012.
  15. ^ A b Marcus Petersen, Hans Rohde: Storm surge - The great floods on the coasts of Schleswig-Holstein and in the Elbe. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1977, p. 78.
  16. ↑ a b c Storm surges and floods as reflected in popular and chronic tradition. In: Bernd Rieken: "North Sea is Mordsee": Storm surges and their significance for the history of mentality of the Frisians. (= Treatises and lectures on the history of East Frisia, Volume 83; = Publications of the Nordfriisk Instituut, Volume 186). Waxmann Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-8309-6499-4 , p. 308. ( limited preview in Google book search)