Freak weather at Alton

[Rob L]

[quote=""stigzy""][quote=""STC""]I don't know what it was like in Staffordshire today, but here in Nottingham it was absolutely insane earlier today. The worst weather so far. TORRENTS of water running down the streets, bouncing off cars with thuds.

Anyone know if it stretched to Alton?[/quote]

About 9-10 am-ish this morning?! I got caught up in it on the M1/M69, lots of cars where pulling over onto the hard shoulder to stop - it was very hard to see anything, even with fog lamps on! Except me however, as per the norm I diced with death and plodded along, and lived to the tell the tale as it goes... But yes I did hear (according to the radio) Towers got another good dose of the wet weather too! Down south however, were I've spent my day, it's been a whole different world - really sunny and hot![/quote]
I was on the M1 on the way down to Southampton then, and we got caught in the torrential rain, the conditions were awful. All you could see were the lights of the car in front of you, and even seeing that was hard. It was so bad we decided to leave the M1 early and go on some A roads where conditions were much better, and then it was lovely and sunny down in Southampton!

The weather must have been bad at Alton the other day to cause that much damage to the path in X Sector. But with all this hot weather we've been having you do get thunderstorms, at least Alton have managed to deal with any damage that was caused.

[Pennywise]

How much do we think the recent weather could have cost the park?

[Anonymous]

Just joined the forum, we went to Alton Towers for the first time for a few years on Monday. Great day out, with lovely hot weather. Just as we left the car park the rain began to fall heavily, and by the time we got to Alton all those wonderful hilly access roads were beginning to turn into rivers. I was seriously wondering if I had taken a wrong turn and ended up back on the log flume !
There was an in car discussion about whether we should carry on with hardly any visibility, or stop the car and risk being trapped by floods. Eventually made it down to near the big JCB plant heading back to Uttoxeter, and had to pull over after visibility dropped to zero. Not at all surprised to see that there were problems in the park. Thanks for putting the pics on of the damage that it caused inside the park.
I see that there are a lot of discussions on this forum about the access routes to the park. For a major tourist attraction they are definitely not up to scratch, and I surprised that there are not more warning signs for visitors unfamiliar with the area.

[Luke]

I went on Monday and it started to thunder at around 12:00. They closed pretty much all of the outdoor rides straight away, and they remained closed for at least half an hour, even although the thunder only lasted 10 minutes.

The first to re-open was the Mine Train, so obviously everyone rushed there and the queue instantly jumped to 45 minutes. They also extended the ride close from 17:30 to 18:00, and possibly even 18:30 as when we were walking to the car park we heard people screaming on the Mine Train.

On a side-note, Duel was closed up until 2ish, and when it did re-open was very temperamental as it was constantly stopping and the lights kept turning off. Rita also broke down only 20 minutes into ERT and remained closed for the rest of the day. There was an almighty bang when they reversed one of the cars from the 'entrance' station to the 'exit' station, which surprised all of the ride staff so it must've been bad, and on ATA they're saying that it's still closed.

[JohnoUK]

[quote=""Luke""]they remained closed for at least half an hour, even although the thunder only lasted 10 minutes.[/quote]

That would be because they wanted to make sure the weather passed before 'chancing' any risk to guests whilst on park. My photo a little later on in this post will prove why;


[quote=""Luke""]On a side-note, Duel was closed up until 2ish, and when it did re-open was very temperamental as it was constantly stopping and the lights kept turning off.[/quote]

I think Duel is still suffering from his/hers/its lightning strike last week, bless.

OK, so, the photo. A little of topic, but it has a point;



As you can just see smoke pouring out of the roof of those houses. At 1615 on Tuesday just gone, the sky went dark and an almighty flash followed right away by what can only be described as an explosion of thunder, shook the B&Q where I work. The 'explosion' was so strong, drills fell off the shelf, the glass on the Garden Centre Metro smashed. Anyhoo, I picked up the drills and my manager came running round shouting "You gotta see this!"

We ran outside and the roof of that house was on fire! Now why it struck a slate roof rather than the Mega Big B&Q Tin Can Warehouse 100 yards away, we will never know, but I'm glad everyone in that house got out fine and unhurt.

That is why they are slow at getting rides reopen after a storm.

[imafatbap]

Just to let anyone wondering now, all the effected rides are now back open, including duel, was there yesterday everything running fine, and the path new the x-cite shop in x-sector was being set with concrete ready to be rebricked so a fair bit of lightning must of struck there

[AltonThorpe]

I remember when I was on Spinball, this massive bolt of lightning struck mid-ride. They had to shut the ride while the storm went over. This was on Monday!

[JohnoUK]

[quote=""imafatbap""]X-sector was being set with concrete ready to be rebricked so a fair bit of lightning must of struck there[/quote]

No where near...

X-Sector wasn't struck by lightning, the paths were washed away with the heavy rainfall.

[Nerdsticks]

hey does anyone know if there has been more bad weather cause had some pretty bad storms in scotland today very scary! especially when i was sent out to get the washing from outside during the storm, that was scary

[Jelka]

I think there was a weather warning for the stafforsire area and other areas of the UK too, but there have been rain showers all over the UK I think.

[Nerdsticks]

okay, its just that storms we had were pretty scary especially when i was sent out to get the clothes off the clothing line outside oh and also, does anyone know if x-sector is fully repaired? i would love to know

[Rob L]

[quote=""nerdsticks10179""]okay, its just that storms we had were pretty scary especially when i was sent out to get the clothes off the clothing line outside oh and also, does anyone know if x-sector is fully repaired? i would love to know[/quote]
I was there on Saturday, and the area in X Sector was still fenced off, but it looked like they'd almost finished the repair work. They've been laying new paving in the damaged area, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's all finished and the area is open again now.

[Nerdsticks]

ahh ok i just wanted to know since im trying to be as updated as possible on my youtube channel

[jomo1993]

Right heres an update
i was in park 2day and the bit of x sector that was fenced of the other day is now open again but they have now gone and closed another bit off lower down.
Also a few minutes after i left we had possibly some of the worst rain i had ever seen and all of the roads in cheadle were really flooded with all sewagey water floating everywhere.
So God knows wot has happened to all of the paths

[JohnoUK]

Anyone on park tomorrow (or that would be 'today') (Friday), just pop a note on here to let us know what's happening, by the sounds of jomo1993's post, they have just had the same weather I had when the path orginally got washed away!

Freaky weather though all over the country, that's what we get for global warming...

[-o< oh [-o< don't lecture us anymore UK Goverment, we know we need to reduce CO2 emissions, but it can't happen overnight!

[shawnoc]

I really don't think its down to global warming! Weather is so random, we are just having a mix between hot and wet weather. As for the path being swept away, Im not surprised it a bloody steep path so water run off will be huge. Block pavers are only set into a dry sand and cement mix, so im not surprised the path give way. It also has to do with what the soil is like underneath the path. If it was fairly loose it would move under heavy rainfall due to being water logged.

[Crofty]

They should use this opportunity to make a proper drainage way for the water to run down to the small pond at the bottom of X -Sector, to the right of Enterprise. It's obviously a natural water course so all that paving isn't going to help, they should just make a feature of it although it wouldn't really add to the theme. :P

[Nerdsticks]

[quote=""jomo1993""]Right heres an update
i was in park 2day and the bit of x sector that was fenced of the other day is now open again but they have now gone and closed another bit off lower down.
Also a few minutes after i left we had possibly some of the worst rain i had ever seen and all of the roads in cheadle were really flooded with all sewagey water floating everywhere.
So God knows wot has happened to all of the paths[/quote]

ok, thank you, it sounds horrible down at staffordshire

[jomo1993]

also one of the staff members told my that the skyride was hit by lightning last monday. This caused no damage but the cable lit up bright blue

[JohnoUK]

[quote=""jomo1993""]also one of the staff members told my that the skyride was hit by lightning last monday. This caused no damage but the cable lit up bright blue[/quote]

Wow, I bet that would of been a sight to behold. I expect it's been struck quite a few times in it's years in service. It's lucky all of it's designed to deal with strikes, even though ground-to-sky strikes are rare in the UK (Or at least they used to be!).