Island warned to brace itself for force 12 Storm Ciaran
Storm Ciaran is due to hit Guernsey tomorrow night, delivering travel chaos with winds gusting of tree-felling proportions.
Condor has warned that no ferries could run for up to seven days, threatening food and medical supply chains.
‘We have obviously experienced spells of adverse weather affecting sailings in the past, but I doubt there has been such risk of disruption which may last for over a week, and also where conditions could be outside the safe operating limits for all of our vessels,’ said Condor’s operations director Elwyn Dop.
‘Our importance to the food supply chain is also understood so every effort will be made to ensure we continue.’
Guernsey Met Office warned that the coming storm would bring winds in excess of those seen almost a fortnight ago during Storm Babet.
‘The storm will bring damaging winds with gusts of around 90mph,’ a spokesman said.
‘This will cause disruption to travel as well as bringing trees down and causing some structural damage.’
The force 12 gusts coincide with nine-metre high tides, and the Met Office said there would likely there be tide warnings throughout the week.
They advised islanders to keep a watch on social media for further updates.
Condor has been forced to make a number of changes to its schedules and is warning of the potential for significant disruption.
A second storm is expected on Saturday, bringing wind speeds of over 70mph and eight metre-high waves.
The company is altering sailings, encouraging and transferring passengers to travel earlier and evaluating options for maintaining the provision of food and medicines to the islands.
‘We are proactively contacting passengers and freight clients to notify them of the likely changes and making plans as best we can, given the current forecasts,’ said Mr Dop.
Liberation and Voyager’s sailings today from Poole and St Malo will run, but to revised routings and timings, while tomorrow’s departures from France to Jersey and Guernsey are both being cancelled.
The company does not anticipate any high speed sailings will then be possible until Tuesday of next week.
The Goodwill and Clipper are scheduled to operate on Tuesday and Wednesday, with cancellations likely and significant disruption to timings from Thursday.
‘The weather is obviously unpredictable so we monitor forecasts constantly and suspect we may end up making further changes over the period,’ said Mr Dop.
