The Canary Islands revived the ghostly images of empty roads and streets with the confinement of a large part of the population. But yesterday it was not a virus that locked up the islanders, as happened in March 2020 with covid. It was a storm. Hermine lowered its strength as it turned towards the Atlantic Ocean and from early in the morning it went from a tropical storm to a post-tropical storm, due to the decrease in the strength of the winds. It left, yes, significant rainfall throughout the Canary Islands, especially in La Palma and Gran Canaria. The difference with respect to the predictive models of Friday, when the maximum alert was declared throughout the Archipelago –that will continue at least until noon today–, was that the rainfall, with the loss of energy from Hermine, fell continuously but steadily, without the great downpours for which the Islands had been prepared due to their destructive power.
What was initially thought to be a very dangerous cyclone ended up becoming a strong storm that brought abundant water to the countryside – which was sorely lacking after a particularly dry summer – and hundreds of incidents without harm to people. “There was not a single person injured,” Ángel Víctor Torres celebrated last night, President of the Canary Islands. The water ran through the mountains and ravines towards the sea and caused occasional floods, mainly in Gran Canaria. The most significant thing was that this storm system formed between Cape Verde and Senegal, which was a tropical depression on Thursday, a tropical storm on Friday – stronger winds – and yesterday afternoon it no longer even appeared on the map of the Miami Hurricane Center. (USA), left the highest rainfall in the Canary Islands in a month of September since meteorological data is available.
Despite Hermine’s weakening, the conditions were important, on a Sunday that Torres defined as “hard.” Air connections were the worst stops of the day, with more than 250 flights canceled, more than 40 diverted and moments of chaos at airports due to the accumulation of passengers who had lost their planes. In addition, 1,800 people suffered power outages –mainly in Gran Canaria and Tenerife– in more than 200 incidents in the electricity service, 24 roads were cut and the Red Cross teleassistance received 11,000 calls, to which is added a trail of actions by landslides on the roads, debris falls, floods, tree falls and some moments of traffic chaos due to the interruption of traffic lights.
The Canary Islands Government will maintain the maximum alert until this noon. In a meeting of the Emergency Committee scheduled for this morning, it will be evaluated if it is maintained or lowered. The latter is most likely because, as Ángel Víctor Torres detailed last night, the storm will stop affecting the Islands as it enters the ocean and loses even more strength. The risk that a strong storm could occur in the early hours of today, even with an electrical device, is behind the maximum prudence of the regional Executive. “We have to maintain caution until the weather improves,” stressed the Canarian president, who recalled that today there will be no classes at any educational level in the Archipelago and advised teleworking.
Incidents in Tenerife.
Tenerife was not the island most affected by Hermine, as the weather warnings predicted on Saturday –orange level compared to the red level of El Hierro, the east of La Palma and the south of Gran Canaria, where it actually rained more–, but it did register heavy rainfall. The highest accumulated values were located in the midlands of the municipality of Güímar, with 109 liters per square meter, although they exceeded one hundred in many other points of the Tenerife geography. There were no major floods, such as those that occurred in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or La Aldea de San Nicolás, but there were hundreds of incidents, none of them serious.
On an island mobilized to minimize the effects of the storm, with all activities suspended as well as the main parks, squares and visitor centers closed, the Cabildo de Tenerife recorded some thirty landslides and stone falls on the island network of roads without major complications except for the TF-5 North motorway, in which a vehicle was affected by a falling stone while driving. Everything was a shock. There were also more accidents than normal, although no personal injuries. Highway operators had to intervene in six of these accidents on the TF-5, TF-47, TF-1, TF-2, TF-454 and TF-46.
The Corporation’s teams also had to intervene to remove a branch on the TF-5, in puddles formed in Varadero and Las Galletas and in sinkholes on the TF-28. Several sections of the access tunnel to Puerto de la Cruz and the TF-445 from Buenavista del Norte to Punta de Teno were also closed preventively. Most of the landslides were concentrated in the Anaga massif (metropolitan area) and the South.
Santa Cruz.
No showers fell on the capital of Tenerife except for some intermittent ones at dawn from Saturday to Sunday. The values in Santa Cruz did not exceed, in fact, 70 liters per square meter, although the emergency teams had a lot of work. There were a total of 130 incidents, the majority due to landslides and dragging of material on public roads (36), but also faults in public lighting (20), faults in electrical wiring (12), problems in the sewage system (12) and falls of trees and branches (12). There were also assists due to falling rubble, breakdowns at traffic lights and puddles. The City Council services collaborated in the draining of water from 7 homes and a social premises.
The most notable episode occurred last night, after 9:00 p.m., when the Local Police closed a section of Islas Canarias Avenue to traffic and had to interrupt the tram when the roof of an abandoned house collapsed. Operators were working last night to restore traffic.
Suspensions.
To the suspension of all the acts in the Archipelago due to the maximum alert for the tropical storm, the theoretical entrance exams in the Civil Guard in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Some 450 candidates were left without testing as a result of heavy rainfall.
The day was marked in Tenerife by a series of incidents, all of them without seriousness, such as falling trees, stones and car accidents.
