Just had a 'competitor' in to my work a few hours ago.  He had his van parked in one of the fields.  The water level had reached such a level that the entire load area was flooded and there is damage to the engine electrics.  We have it running outside so hopefully it should just be a few minor electrical componants.

This guy is seriously equipped for outdoors survival (I think he teaches navigation etc) and when asked his opinion, he just shrugged his shoulders and said it was a mixture of over sensationalized press coverage, over enthusaistic honister slate guy getting involved and uninformed people (Such as police) trying to get involved in a situation they didnt understand.  He didnt seem to think it was much of a newsworthy event.

Is it up to the police to call an event like this off? I accept that in some instances they have a valuable advisory role, such as football matches and so on, but I don't think they should have the authority to tell people to cancel stuff, on the off-chance (and given our H&S mad world, that's all it would have to be) that something bad MAY happen.

As has been said, it will be interesting to see exactly how many requests for help were made by the actual competitors on the OMM, compared to that number of normal hill walkers on a normal lake district weekend.  I bet it's about the same, if not less.

It would be a shame if all this hype were allowed to spoil the event for the future.

See

http://www.birminghammail.net/2008/10/27/

runner-in-fight-for-life-at-birmingham-half-marathon-97319-22125330/ 

for real risks and need for mdical resources. 

There were lots of people who had never set foot off tarmack rining radio 2 today talking at leanth as though they really believed they knew WTF they were talking about.

There were many people demanding to know who was going to pay for the MRT costs of resucuing those people.

Ermm, we already have done, paid in advance, where does she think their funding comes from?

Trevor D Gamble wrote (see)

Reiver, have you now joined the SAS or something then? As your standard avatar picture there reminds me of pictures of Andy NcNab on tv, trying hard to conceal his true identity!

I don't think the SAS would have me at the moment

Its OM's own image, i removed the writing and flipped it over!

 BBC Look North running it as their main news tonight outside of the MRT shed at Keswick, total costs for the opperation running into hundreds of ks they measured H pass at 194mm of rain and top wind speed of 80 mph sounds like a tropical storm.

I was there. The BBC have over reacted and failed to back check their story. Mr Slate Mine fed them what they wanted to hear - 'a disaster'. They went for it and for 24 hours no one on the OMM knew about it or could do anything about it. By then it was too late, damage done, families concerned, panic calls left on mobiles.

It was wet, it was windy, people knew what they were doing. Shame it got called off, but was a fair decision to start it and the right decision to pull it.

Basically, everything you heard on the BBC news was untrue and totally out of proportion. But Mr Slate Mine did get his free PR in the process.

Many complaints going into BBC and one very good podcast on the way.......