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June 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Organiser promises to give refunds for unused tickets
- Queues leave 600 stranded on ferries across the Solent
- Heavy rain to batter Britain, with North West warned of flood risk
02:54 EST, 22 June 2012
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06:37 EST, 22 June 2012
Hundreds of music fans have been forced to sleep in their cars after traffic became gridlocked when heavy rains turned the Isle of Wight Festival site turned into a mudbath.
The queues caused ferry companies to suspend their services and about 600 people were last night stranded on ferries on the Solent as the boats could not be disembarked because of traffic build-up on the island.
The fiasco, which saw some motorists stuck for up to 22 hours, has prompted the festival’s organiser to promise frustrated fans they will get their money back if they return their tickets unused.
Festivalgoers have been cursing the weather after the event’s car parks became water-logged, while all across the mainland people are bracing for a day of downpours. Parts of the North West were today warned of flood risks, with up to four inches of rain expected to fall.
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Water-logged: Blaise Franklin (left) and Nathan Mursall wallow in the mud at the campsite at the Isle of Wight festival
Welcome to the British summer: The unseasonal downpour makes a bog of the festival site, prompting revellers to opt for the wellingtons and hotpants combo
Dirty work: Four friends wade through the filth, determined to enjoy the first day of bands
Problems on the Isle of Wight started after heavy rain fell
yesterday, soaking the car parks at Seaclose Park, Newport,
meaning that they became churned up with mud as cars began to arrive.
This led to the car parks becoming inaccessible and long queues stretching back to the port towns of Ryde and Cowes.
Police led many of those waiting to Newport Football Club, where they were given shelter overnight.
Now organisers are urging anyone still waiting to get to the island to leave their cars.
A festival spokeswoman said: ‘If you are on the mainland we are advising people not to travel by car.
‘There is a ferry service for foot passengers and this will be the easiest route. We are sorry for any disruptions caused.’
Promoter
John Giddings said in an interview with BBC Radio Solent: ‘Believe you
me, I am doing everything in my power and the police are telling me to
do everything in my power, because they want an emergency plan from me
by Sunday about how we are going to get people out.’
He added: ‘If you’ve
got your ticket I have to refund you if you send it back to me. I mean,
that’s outrageous. If someone has suffered that, I don’t believe I
should keep their money.’
Fiona Gregory, from Salehurst in East
Sussex, said that she had left home at 1.30pm yesterday and was still
stuck in queues in the early hours of this morning.
She
told the BBC: ‘I’m so upset. It’s a complete disaster. On the island it
has been a nightmare. There is no police, no diversion signs, nothing.
‘Now we’re about two miles away on a country lane and we have moved one mile in the last four hours.’
While thousands endured queues on the
island, other parts of Britain were preparing for their own travel
misery as downpours threaten to flood roads.
Downcast: Music fans trample through fields ruined by footfall after a night of heavy rain
A couple hold hands as they concentrate on keeping their footing amid the slippery muck
My home for the weekend: A man stands ankle-deep in mud as he surveys the sodden campsite
Standstill: Queues reach back to the port across several lanes
The
Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for heavy rain across
parts of Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire, with 2-2.4
inches of rainfall expected across much of the area and up to 4 inches
in some places.
The heavy rain could lead to surface
water flooding of roads and land, and there is also a risk of floods
from rivers in built-up areas which are quickly affected by large
amounts of rainfall, the Environment Agency warned.
The Government agency has urged
people in Greater Manchester, Liverpool, the Wirral, North Cheshire and
Lancashire to be prepared for the possibility of flooding from this
afternoon through to Saturday.
Parts of south-east England, East
Anglia, the north and east Midlands and north and west Wales are also on
alert for localised surface water flooding today and into the weekend,
the Environment Agency said.
Matt Dobson, a forecaster with
Meteogroup, said: ‘The worst weather overnight has been across the North
West and into Cheshire, where between 0.4 and 0.8 inches fell. Central
and southern Scotland were also badly hit.
‘Throughout the day the rain really
is going to develop from South West Scotland, across Northern Ireland
down into north-west England.
‘It will be very wet in those areas,
with the worst of it in Cumbria and the western Pennines, from
Manchester up to Cumbria and across into south-west Scotland, and in
north-west Wales as well.
‘There will be 0.8 to 1.2 inches of
rain quite widely, with maybe as much as 2 to 2.4 inches of rain over
upland areas such as the fells of Cumbria and the western Pennines.’
Faster on foot: Music fans laden down with luggage stroll past the queues
Roughing it: Frustrated revellers, some of whom had endured a wait of more than ten hours, arrived to face a weekend sleeping at the mud-caked campsite
Grin and bear it: One festivalgoer appears to keep his sense of humour as he smiles under an umbrella
IT’S OFFICIALLY TOO WET TO SWIM
A swimming contest has had to be called off – because it is too wet.
The Great North Swim at Windermere in the Lake District is just one of many sporting events ruined by heavy rain.
The three-day event, which started today and includes a range of races, attracts 10,000 swimmers from across Britain.
But a two-mile race due to take place yesterday had to be put back until Sunday.
Organisers say torrential rain and winds gusting up to 40mph will stop safety kayakers who accompany the swimmers being able to see.
David Hart, of organisers Nova International, said: ‘Participants are always going to get wet.
‘But there’s been a severe weather warning for the whole area. There is going to be torrential rain and winds averaging 25mph and gusting up to 40mph.
‘There is even a small risk of thunder and lightning – welcome to the British summer!
‘The site is set up to deal with British weather conditions but torrential rain can reduce visibility on the water for the safety kayakers and visibility is a key part of the safety conditions.’
Swimmers are being offered a full refund of their entry fee if they are unable to take part.
The EA said it had mobilised teams
across the North West to check flood defences, clear river blockages and
monitor river levels to try to reduce the risk of flooding.
The public are also urged to remain
vigilant and check the Environment Agency website and Twitter feed for
the latest updates and warnings, with a number of flood alerts and more
serious warnings expected.
People are being warned to stay away from swollen rivers and not to drive through floodwater.
Parts of England and Wales have been
hit by flooding in recent weeks in the face of unusually wet weather,
which came after two dry winters in a row that had left swathes of
England in drought.
Firefighters in North Yorkshire said
they responded to more than 25 flooding calls as a wave of heavy rain
moved across the county last night.
A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire
Rescue Service said crews were sent to 14 different locations,
many involving flooded properties, although the incidents are thought to
have been isolated.
He said areas affected were around
Harrogate, Knaresborough and Boroughbridge in the west of the county and
Bedale and Leeming Bar in the north.
There were also reports a house was damaged when it was struck by lightning in Osgodby, near Selby.
Back on the Isle of Wight, revellers
have been venting their frustration on Twitter over the past 24 hours,
with one user – tweeting as
@ClashCityWomble – telling followers how, by 5pm yesterday, he had
already been stuck in Portsmouth for three hours.
At 7.40am today,
the same fan posted a message directed at the festival’s official
account: ‘no sleep for 24 hours, camped in a car on a road in the IOW
for 10. #shambles #amateurs’.
Islanders
who were not planning to attend the festival have also been affected,
with local media reporting Wootton Primary School, in the north of the
island, had been forced to close because staff were unable to get to
work.
More than 50,000
people are travelling to the festival which is being headlined by Pearl
Jam, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen and The E
Street Band.
Entertainment
started last night for those who had reached the site although the Big
Top stage was evacuated at one stage because of heavy wind and rains –
but it did reopen for headliners Primal Scream.
The
Charlatans also played an exclusive warm-up gig at Spitbank Fort, a
Napoleonic Fort in the middle of the Solent, organised by Absolute
Radio.
In for the long haul: Cars wait to board the Red Funnel ferry in Southampton heading to the Isle of Wight
Are we there yet? A queue of traffic tails off into the distance across the rain-slicked tarmac
Wet weekend: Relentless heavy rain will hit the North West today, spreading across the north and into southwest Scotland. It will persist in the west into Saturday and will cover much of the UK on Sunday, when it will begin to let up
Video by Steve Mew (@brainzuk)
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I went to Bestival a few years a go and while I had a really great time, leaving the site and the Island spoilt the whole experience for me. It took HOURS. Queuing to get a bus from the festival site to the ferry terminal, and then queuing for about 5 hours to get a ferry (it didn’t seem to matter that you’d booked a specific transfer time, that went out the window). I heard that vehicle passengers had it worse, some of them queued for so long that they missed the last ferry and had to sleep in their car overnight. All of this and the weather was perfect – I can’t imagine how awful it would have been in the rain. To me it seemed very obvious that the Island’s infrastructure just wasn’t designed for an event of this scale, I felt sorry for the locals, and I would never go back to a festival there.
– Chloe, London, 22/6/2012 12:28
Did you change your mind about going Chloe?!
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Seriously, why do you all need to take your cars over? The Island’s too small to accomodate all the extra vehicles, so it would have made more sense to park up at the ferry ports, and maybe go over as foot passengers and even catch a bus at the other end?
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I’ve been to IOW and it’s an amazing festival. The weather should brighten and when the music starts and the bar is open everyone will forget about the mud and traffic!
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Its cheaper to get a ferry to France than the Isle Of Wight. How they are allowed to charge what they do is a mystery. Both providers effectively hold the island’s economy to ransom.
– Danny Boy, Aldershot, 22/6/2012 10:59
You’re dead right there. I paid £125 to take my caravan over in April and that was with a concession. It would have cost £199 without! I’ve also got the ferry booked from Dover to Dunkerque in July and that cost me £68. It’s also 10 times the distance. Work that one out. Oh, I already have. It’s called a rip off.
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Ha ha ha, what sort of idiots pay to spend nights under canvas in very unsanitary conditions and to listen to bands , whom, even if good, sound rubbish in the open air? All festivals of this size and type are bound to be tripe, but of course the participants and have to claim to have ‘enjoyed’ it. Lemmings and fools. Ha ha ha
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Is Hendrix playing this year?
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Yes, it’s a shame for the festival goers, but it’s a bigger shame for the IoW residents who have been so badly inconvenienced by all this. It’s not as though the bad weather was a surprise to anyone, not even the so-called organisers of the event.
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I say, I say ,I say–isn’t there a hosepipe ban on the Isle of Wight?
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Farmer Giles found his fields were flooded and he didn’t know what to do.
Why wasn’t traffic diverted to Shanklin and Godshill instead? Looks like Twitter and facebook beat the hacks to it again.
Please send the festival to Gosport, it needs one and has lots of empty fields not being used and not quite as many inter-related nimbys on the organisation committes.
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A little bit of sensible advice to all these sad folk.
Physically or mentally-DON’T EVEN go THERE!
As for the organisers-stand up be counted.
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