The series of violent storms over large parts of Germany continued during the night. storm depression Antonia caused heavy gusts of wind again, after the hurricane lows of the past few days Ylenia and Zeynep rows of trees fell and buildings were damaged. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency warned that there was a risk of storm surges again for the German North Sea coast.
Due to significant damage, rail travelers must also be prepared for impairments at the start of the week. Especially in northern Germany, train journeys are only possible to a very limited extent. According to Deutsche Bahn (DB), travelers must expect severe impairments until at least Monday afternoon. The train advised, among other things, to postpone trips to and from Hamburg as far as possible. Accordingly, as of Monday morning, there were no long-distance trains between Hamburg and Rostock/Stralsund, Berlin and Rostock/Stralsund, Norddeich Mole/Emden and Cologne and Siegen and Dortmund.
According to the railway on Sunday, around 2,000 emergency services were on duty around the clock to remove fallen trees and repair overhead lines. In view of the volume, however, this can only be done step by step. Since Sunday evening at 9 p.m., no train from the private railway company Metronom, which operates many regional lines in Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Bremen, has been running. Instead of the Metronom, Enno and Erixx trains, there will probably be an emergency bus service until Monday afternoon.
The heavy gusts of wind from low Antonia can still be felt during the day. For all regions of Germany, the DWD warning map was colored at least orange on Monday morning – also red in the south and especially in the south-west on the edge of the Alps. There were level 3 severe weather warnings for storm and hurricane gusts. On the Brocken, the warning level was even 4 – i.e. the level for extreme storms.
Due to the storm in parts of Bavaria and restrictions on train traffic, some classes in the Lower Franconian district of Miltenberg are to be canceled this Monday. The background to this is that the West Franconia Railway will stop train services on the entire route network from Sunday evening to Monday morning, according to the Bavarian Ministry of Education.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the railways announced on Sunday evening that they would no longer send any new regional trains onto the route after 8 p.m. S-Bahn and regional trains are expected to start operating again on Monday morning.
Better weather is in sight
Disabilities do not only exist on the rails, but also, for example, for ship passengers on the Baltic Sea between Rostock and Denmark. As the ferry company Scandlines announced, the trips between Rostock and the Danish port of Gedser were canceled until Monday noon.
A truck overturned on the Fehmarn Sound Bridge due to the strong wind. The bridge was temporarily blocked in both directions in the early morning, as a spokesman for the police control center in Lübeck said. The truck driver was unharmed. The bridge connects the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn with the mainland.
In Cologne, the Zoobrücke was temporarily closed after a car accident. Because of the strong wind, the empty trailer of a car had rocked there in the evening, as a police spokesman said. The driver lost control of his car and crashed through the bridge’s central barrier. The lockdown was lifted early Monday morning.
There is good news from the German Weather Service (DWD): An end to the violent storm series is in sight. The DWD predicted a “further slackening of the wind” for Tuesday night. On Sunday, a DWD meteorologist announced: “We still have to get through the storm situation until Monday.” The weather only calmed down in the evening. “The wind will remain an issue throughout the week,” he explained. “However, that will be a completely different house number than what we are experiencing these days.”