Windstorm Xynthia (2010)
A windstorm whose surge flooded housing developments on the French Atlantic coast in 2010, and which put a mayor on trial for allowing building in flood zones.
Xynthia was not exceptional for its winds, but it coincided with a very high tide, and the surge overtopped old dikes behind which single-story houses had been built on former marshland. Most victims drowned in their homes at night. In France, wind falls under the windstorm cover of homeowners policies and flooding by the sea under the natural catastrophe regime, so a single loss triggered two mechanisms. The government then bought out and demolished hundreds of houses in areas judged too dangerous, using the natural hazard prevention fund, and strengthened coastal risk prevention plans. The criminal conviction of the mayor of La Faute-sur-Mer turned building in flood zones into a matter of personal liability, not just of insurance.
On the night of February 27 to 28, 2010, Xynthia killed 47 people in France, 29 of them in La Faute-sur-Mer; on December 12, 2014, the criminal court of Les Sables-d'Olonne sentenced former mayor René Marratier to four years in prison, a sentence reduced on appeal in 2016.
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