Wind and rain bring travel chaos



The winds have brought down a number of trees

Severe weather has flooded homes, closed schools and is causing chaos for thousands of travellers across England.

Following her performance at a rainy
Glastonbury Festival, Dame Shirley Bassey's helicopter landed at a school after being caught in bad weather.

The opening of the Wimbledon tennis tournament was delayed by rain.

Floods have closed many main roads and disrupted rail services. Forecasters have issued severe weather warnings across most of the country.

They have warned of gales and downpours dumping up to a month's rain in the next 24 hours. Several rivers are at risk of flooding.

The flood risk is being exacerbated because the ground is already saturated from last week's rain.

Emergency calls

The worst weather is expected across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where twice the average June rainfall has already fallen.

Nina Ridge from the BBC Weather Centre said an area of low pressure was responsible.

"It is moving very slowly and is really just sitting there adding to the totals," she said.

Drivers have got to slow down - you must take account of the surface conditions

Jill Risdale, Highways Agency

Fire and rescue services from the South West to Humberside have reported hundreds of calls from people affected by flooding.

Heavy rain has caused streams to overflow their banks, flooding homes in north Devon with 2ft (60cm) of water.

A motorist was taken to hospital after a tree fell on his car at Cowley near Exeter.

In Gloucestershire, a number of schools
and roads were closed and 70 dogs were rescued from a flooded kennels in Gloucester.

There have been several accidents on the M5 and M4 in the West Country.

Jill Risdale from the Highways Agency said: "Drivers have got to slow down. You must take account of the surface conditions - there's a lot of surface water and spray."

Rising water has closed schools and roads in Lincolnshire. Fifty homes and businesses in Louth were evacuated because of flooding.

In Middlesbrough, the re-opening of the town's Transporter Bridge has been delayed for two days because rain hampered repair work.

Environment Agency flood warnings are in place for the Anglian, Midlands, North East and Thames regions.

Cup of tea

On the railways, Central Trains, Chiltern Railways, First Capital Connect, First Great Western, Transpennine Express and Virgin Trains have all warned of disruption to services due to the weather.

The opening day of Wimbledon, south-west London, was hit by rain with play expected to start after 1230 BST. The Centre Court roof has been removed for redevelopment work.

At Glastonbury in Somerset, thousands of music fans were attempting to leave the site after a weekend of heavy rain and liquid mud.

Dame Shirley Bassey was being flown from her set at the festival when the helicopter was forced to land at Collingwood College, Camberley, Surrey.
The singer was given a cup of tea by a local resident.

Adam do ou have a hurrican season there

Naw
The last hurricane we had, was in 1987

that sgood same here for nyc not many hurricanes

thats l337

Is there an El Nino blowing around this year or what?
I know that here, at least every other day for the past month, it's rained. It's rained enough to be killing some of our outside plants, and breaking limbs off our trees.

Your trees have limbs? Liek reapers from UO o_O

Most trees over here just have branches

Seriously though its global warming - the UK is not hot and wet. When I were a lad rain was really quite rare, and through the 1970s to about 2000 we were in perma-drought in the uk. Then all of a sudden we just get rain rain rain =/

We had a notice sent through our doors sometime back, that our area, which was a "no risk" flood area, is now a low risk flood area, because of global warming.
Not sure if anyone else got that in the UK

Aye its terrible here in Hull! Although Adam you missed off one the most important things which happened only a few minutes away from me.
Absolutly terrible, my heart goes out to his family who suffered a loss today. At least we can be safe in the knowledge that he didnt drown. He died with someone with him in the drain holding his head up till he passed out from the cold.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...,00.html?f=rss

A man who was stuck in a drain for around three hours in the Hessle area of Hull has died despite a battle by firefighters and divers to save him.

Map shows scene in HullRescuers fought in vain to free the man who was trapped in freezing flood waters.

Glenn Ramsden, of Humberside Fire and Rescue, told Sky News: "It's an absolutely terrible situation here.

"His foot got caught in a metal grate ... we couldn't do anything to save him.

"We've had about five fire engines here, plus the police diving team, the paramedics and all the rest of the crew.

"It's been an absolutely desperate operation to save this man but at the end of the day we couldn't do it."

The man, believed to be in his mid-20s, had been trying to fix a drain near a fish farm in the Hessle area of Hull.

At one stage, emergency crews had to hold his head above the rising water as he slipped under for around 20 seconds.

He then lost consciousness as his family rushed to the scene.

Sky News reporter Frazer Maude said: "We could see him clearly desperate, clearly under some duress as he struggled to keep his head above water."

The muddy water also obscured the view of crews, standing up to their necks in water, as they tried to free his foot.

Downstream garden walls were demolished in an attempt to divert the flood and lower the water level.

The Humberside Fire and Rescue has also been called by a man who says he is trapped in his car by rising floodwaters and cannot get out.

Michael Mulford from the RAF rescue centre at Kinloss told Sky News that two helicopters have been scrambled from RAF Leckenfield to search for the man on a five mile stretch of road between Dunswell and Bishop Burton.

The Environment Agency now has 10 severe flood warnings and 68 standard flood
warnings in place.

Five of the severe warnings are in the north east of England, one in the Midlands and four in the Anglian area.

The Met Office has also issued flash warnings of heavy rain for much of the country.

Its warnings cover Wales, north west England, Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands, East Midlands, the east of England, south west England, London and south east England.

Aye I read about that
God what a horrible way to die...and what a horrible thing to watch happen to.