"Charly" in Upper Austria:

Gusts of over 100 km/h, yet a calm night of storms

A dozen bent trees, that's all the damage "Charly" caused. Upper Austria came through the night of the storm in good shape (symbolic image)

(Bild: Freiwillige Feuerwehr Thalgau)

"We've had much, much worse storm nights" - the fire departments in Upper Austria breathe a sigh of relief. "Charly" passed through and didn't get most of the firefighters out of bed. A few trees were blown down, but all the roofs are still on the houses and nobody was injured.

Gusts of more than 100 km/h, 107 km/h were measured in Wolfsegg, after "Charly" moved in from Bavaria to Upper Austria late in the evening as forecast. At 8.14 pm, the fire departments were called out for the first storm operation: A fallen tree blocked a road in Mattighofen. And 58 minutes later, firefighters in Laakirchen had to be called out to secure a roof, but were back on the scene after just over an hour.

Operations in 14 rural communities
A chimney fire in Niederthalheim in the Vöcklabruck district could also have been caused indirectly by "Charly". Although it blew hard, it left all the roofs on the houses. In Lambrechen, Haag/H., Wolfern, Kallham, Sierning, Ried im Innkreis, St. Florian near Linz, Luftenberg, Kirchberg ob der Donau, Eberstalzell and finally Steyregg, the sirens were wailing to wake up helpers so that traffic routes could be cleared. Trees lay across the roads. If you add up all the storm operations, there were alerts in 14 rural communities by the morning.

Many operations in Linz
The firefighters were also busy in the provincial capital. The main task here was to put back up or secure construction site grids or billboards that had been blown over. No injuries were reported from Linz either. Fortunately, "Charly" did not join the list of the worst storms, with "Kyrill", "Paula", "Zoltan" or "Paula" still fresh in the memories of many Upper Austrians.