The largest waves occurred in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) and Blanes (Girona), but Protecció Civil, Catalonia’s Civil Protection service, has listed incidents of storm damage in towns along the entire coast.

In most cases the damage is limited to the erosion of beaches, or some flooding of promenades and roads near the coast.

This time around no damage has been reported to the promenade along S’Abanell, the beach along Blanes’ tourist district.

In previous years storms frequently ate away sections of the boulevard.

In 2009 the boulevard was repaired and reinforced — temporary measures in anticipation of an ambitious redevelopment and improvement project affecting the beach, promenade and streets in the El Pins district.

Each year storm damage to the beaches is repaired.

Much Rain

The large amounts of rain have caused minor landslides, such as on Vidal y Barraquer, one of the roads leading to Blanes’ Castell de Sant Joan.

In recent months Catalonia has been inundated with heavy rains. To give an idea of the amount of water involved, local news website BlanesAldia.com says that from October 19 Malgrat de Mar — just south of Blanes — has seen 510 liters of rainwater per square meter, the amount usually collected during an entire year.

Minor landslides and some flooding has been reported in rural areas throughout Catalonia.

The Civil Protection service has activated the alert phase of INUNCAT, an emergency plan that deals with the threat or occurrence of flooding. It has closed access to some jetties and boulevards along the coast.

The weather services says that while the storm has moved on, waves of up to 2.5 meters high can still be expected.

The highest waves recorded during yesterday’s storm, as measured off the coast of Roses, reached 7.7 meters.

Experts have warned that the storm may bring even higher waves today.

The public has been advised to stay away from jetties, and in several towns access to port docks has been closed off.

As a precaution fishermen in Llançà and Blanes have sailed their boats to safer harbors.

The 2008 storm damaged pleasure boats, fishing vessels and tourist ferries — smashing some of them to pieces on the beach of Blanes.

Sections of the docks at the harbor of Blanes also sustained heavy damage, and the seawall is at present unreliable during severe storms.

A project to enlarge and fortify the harbor is on the way.

The current storm also brought snow to the area, curtailing or interrupting some trains services to and from Blanes.

Train services elsewhere in Catalonia were also affected by the storm.

Barcelona, meanwhile, has seen its most intense snowfall since 1962 and snow throughout the region has brought power outages, traffic jams and countless fender-benders.
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The storm brought snow to Tarragona, a Catalonia beach resort town 60 miles southwest of Barcelona.

In Sant Antoni de Calonge a strong gust of wind pushed a woman into the sea where she drowned.

Along the coast of Maresme waves reaching a high of 4.5 meters swept away much of the sand redeposited on the beaches last year by the Ministry of the Environment.

And in Blanes the storm carried away 120 meters of the boulevard along S’Abanell beach. The damaged section is at the end of the walk, alongside the campings. Further north the stretch of boulevard repaired and reinforced last year was not damaged in the latest storm.
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It’s mild climate ensures almost year-round mild weather.

But from time to time, storms do occur. The latest, in December 2008, was one of the worst in more than 50 years.

Summertime tourists and holiday makers the world over will be aghast when they see what happened to their favorite beaches. Some are strewn with the wreckages of fishing vessels, dinghies and even tourist ferries. Others have disappeared altogether:

Blanes Beaches Will Be Back

Just like after the big storms at the beginning of 2008, when the beaches of Blanes disappeared, the sand will be restored in plenty of time for tourist season.

In what the mayor referred to as the worst storm Blanes has seen since the 1950s, the December 26 storm caused much damage to pleasure boats, fishing vessels and tourist ferries:

The mayor was as yet unable to provide an estimate of the damage.

Other towns along the Costa Brava — including Portbou, Llançà, L’Escala, L’Estartit, Platja d’Aro, Tossa de Mar and Lloret de Mar — also suffered much damage from the storm.

Blanes Port Expansion Project

According to Trias, the damage caused by this latest storm proves the importance of the planned expansion of the port.

The project, with a budget of €22 million, is currently stranded in the offices of the Ministry of the Environment.

Joaquim Nadal, Minister of Town and Country Town and Public Works of the ‘Generalitat de Catalunya’, visited the port of Blanes the day after the storm. He said that the significant damage here was caused by strong waves of between four and six meters high. Nadal has vowed to do everything possible to boost the planned construction of the new breakwater.

Other Damage

The beaches of Barcelona were temporarily closed during the storm. Further up the coast, the waves damaged many beaches, flooded some roads — as well as the underground parking garage at Blanes — and halted train services.

In the town of Girona-Castell Platja d’Aro 30 people had to be evicted from their waterfront homes.

In the same city, four people were treated for injuries after a powerful wave crashed into the restaurant where they were dining.