If you go out on the road, you also have to be careful on Friday night and Saturday. Rijkswaterstaat warns road users about trees, branches and other rubbish that could still be everywhere on the road. It will also take hours before stranded trucks are recovered. On the Moerdijk Bridge on the A16, among others, several trucks were blown over and the road has been closed for a long time.
“Cleaning up can only start in many places when the storm has passed,” said a spokesman for Rijkswaterstaat. “The safety of our people comes first.”
That the mess on the road can be life-threatening, was shown on the N65 near Helvoirt, among other things. A car drove into a tree that lay across the road. There are also branches or even complete trees on the road in many other places.
No trains on Saturday
ProRail has announced that no trains can run on Saturday morning, because the damage to the track is too great. In many places in the country fallen trees are lying on the track or the overhead wires are damaged. ProRail started on Friday evening with inspection rides, which are rides without passengers to check whether there are any roadblocks or damage to the track. However, due to the persistent strong winds, this is not yet possible safely in the entire country.
Worst is now over
Rijkswaterstaat expects that in some places it may still take until Saturday to recover all the overturned trucks and to clean up the other mess. As long as there is still a storm, it is recommended to only go on the road if there is really no other option.
In Brabant, the storm seems to have passed the highest point around eight o’clock on Friday evening. Code orange was officially over by then, but the wind is still strong in large parts of the province. Until 1 a.m., code yellow still applies.
Read all about the storm in Brabant in our live blog.