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Figure 5.5. Opening of passages in the “reef-islands” during a hurricane
on the south-eastern coast of the United States according to [LEA 79]
The retreat of dune feet is impressive; it was measured at Myrtle
Beach (famous beach resort in South Carolina) to be between 8 and
18 m in the few hours in which the sea was at its wildest. As for the
storm Xynthia, the most recent one among those that periodically
affect the French Atlantic coastline, it deployed slightly less energy in
the model (Figure 5.6). On 27 February 2010, the Atlantic coast was
under threat of a violent storm, with four departments under red flags,
including the Vendée and Charente Maritime, and it was hit during the
night of February 27 and 28: southwesterly winds at 110-120 km/h
with peaks at 140-160 km/h in Oléron and Ré. These are not the
highest wind speeds recorded (Klaus storm in 2009, more than
200 km/h). The tidal coefficient was high (but far from the theoretical
maximum of 120), at 102, and the trough was deep, at 977 hpa. The
atmospheric and tidal sea surge increased the levels to up to 4.7 m
General Leveling of France (GLF). This was of course an exceptional
phenomenon, but it is not rare: marine submersion is recurrent and has
been recorded since the end of the Middle Ages, at least in the cases
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