At the southern end of Sønderportsgade, just before the bridge over the river, stands a strange wooden post painted with horizontal stripes and dates. This is the Stormflodssøjlen — Ribe's flood column — and the stripes mark the heights of the major North Sea storm floods that have hit the town since the early seventeenth century.
The shock is the height of the top mark, set well above your head. Ribe is built on what was once the limit of the salt marshes and has been periodically overrun by the tide; the cathedral itself was flooded above the lower windows in 1634. Modern dyke systems have largely tamed the threat, but the column is a useful reminder of why every house in Ribe is built half a metre off the ground.