Pukkelpop

[Susan Pevensie]

Hey guys

so thanks everyone for all the messages i'll try to get back to you all here
Firstly lay, i don't think family parties are high on my priority list right now, but call me if you want to talk to me

Peter Pevensie: Yea i'm fine, apparently FB and twitter were the fastest ways to communicate we hardly got any information at the site itself
@natalie: Yea it felt like that for us as well, you know belgian weather two days of nice weather = thunderstorm so we knew it was coming we didn't know it was this bad, it left a 60 km trail and pukkelpop just fell right into it, i can hardly believe it either, i haven't heard back yet from 3 of my friends so yea pretty concerned

Caspian: Loads happened but i'll give you a quick transcript of the day

- 11:30AM i was at the festival itself, listening to two bands (wolfg ang and eliza doolittle) and then we went to lunch and afterwards to Hasselt the nearest city because we needed some aftersun, it was incredebly hot

- 5PM ish: i get back from hasselt from the five of our group 3 went and two were on the camping, i was the one on that bus my two friends came back later, i relaxed for like half an hour in the tent with my friend, because the other one went to her boyfriend

-5:30PM: we left to go see Panic at the disco in the marquee (a tent) but we stopped on the festval shop 'cause i didn't have a rain coat and my matras had a leak so i needed a new one.

5:45PM: we rushed back to our tent 'cause it started to rain heavily

6:15PM: the actual storm began, i can't put time on it but i do have a video below that might give you an impression of how bad it was.

I and two of my friends were inside of the tent trying to push against it to keep it standing, like we were pushing against the rain and the elements, it was hard. During that i fell twice on something which still causes my back to hurt. The two others of my friend (one who had his own tent far away from ours) were outside during the whole thing trying to keep it standing from there.

6:50: The storm was over for the most part, it was raining lightly, but all the cell phone coverage was out for a while so no one could contact anyone and we all knew that in 10 minutes it would be news item one.

7:05: Some guy came to tell us several tents had collapsed including the exit between the marquee and the festival exit (where i was ought to be in other words)

7:20: I finally got trough to my mom after 30 minutes of trying, got to comfort her, but then i got the news that one of my friends was working here and that no one had heard from her yet, at that point i was alone 'cause my friends were helping others and i was managing the tent, trying to dry it off.

8:00 ish; A second storm hit the festival site, again most people were unharmed,

8:15 ish: because of the fact that my mate's stuff was all wet, his own tent had run under water and mud, we went to the store to get some dry stuff and some sweaters for all of us and we heared the first death oficially confirmed, at that point there were loads of rumors flying around.

9 ish: We decided that even though the people who orginased pp told us to stay we'd go home that night, because our tent had holes on two places and even the sleeping compartment of our tent was filled with water, my stuff was the wettest (naturally)

9:30 ish: Because of the fact that we'd go home two of my friends left for the car to check if it was alright, and i went hearing after my friend who is on the festival itsef

10:30 ish: my friends came back to tell us the car was alright they picked up the first pieces of baggage while me and my friend were at the store again to try and get some blankets because we were freezing

11:30 ish: we were with far to many for the car so one of us decided to stay behind (one of my friends boyfriend and the original five, including me, decided to leave that night)

I tried to call my parents again to tell them, we didn't get any official information. It seemed like te exodus and i mean bilcial proportions as well, there was mud till my knees at some points mostly it was just about 20 to 30 centimeters, it was way worse in the front. When i got trough to my parents they told me that my dad would pick me up, 'cause one of my friends was driving and to be frank it was obvious she didn't have her licence for to long, i am a better driver

so around that time i left from our tent which was way at the back of the camping for my hike trough the mud with my own luggage, and my new shoes and the one dress that stayed dry safely put away to the front it took me about an hour to get there

1 AM; (it's fryday) and at that point i hand't even realised, i don't know if you've realised in my reports but at that time i was wet, i had changed into my PJ after the first storm because it and the dress were the two things that had stayed dry. And around 12 it had started to rain again. so i was soaked, muddy up to my waist from the upward splashing tired 'cause i had woken up that morning at 6AM and hungry 'cause i had last ate something at 1 PM. I took the bus, there were bussed every second at that point that was good. They first stopped at the emergency sleeping place for people who thought it might go on, today and tomorrow (it now has been cancelled for sure)

1:30 AM: i'm at hasselt station where my dad came to pick me up, sure enough it took him less time to drive 100KM then it did for me to walk 3KM to my bus and for the buss to drive 5KM. I changed into the new, hideous, shoes i bought they were clean and dry that was something, i cleaned up a bit and put on the dry dress

1:40AM: me and my dad left hasselt for the drive home

2:40AM; i came home where my mom was highly worried about me and i was asleep by around 3 AM.

So that's (in short even though it's very long) what happened. I could go into detail but that would take me loads more word, for now i am just glad that you guys are here and that i'm safe, still hoping my friends will be as well.

EDIT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnTRTZGo_Zo here is that vid i promised. Word of advise for people, when you buy a tent and you want it to be storm resistant i advise to buy one of those quesua pop up tents, they survived while regular tents, like ours did not.

[Caspian]

Wow Su. Sounds like you've had quite an adventure. Glad you're alright, and I hope your friend is too. About the death reports, how did those people die? Did they get knocked down by something in the storm?

[Susan Pevensie]

Yea it was adrenaline that kept most of us if not all of us going

and from the people who died there were four on the festival one on the camping, the person from the camping i don't know, a lamp tower fell on some tents he or she could have been in one, or a tree i really don't know

from the people on the festival flying tree brances, three tents collapses so they could have been under that

3 were dead instantly, two died later at the hospital from the 11 critically injured that i reported later only 3 are still fighting for their lives.

[Caspian]

Wow. That sounds more like a tornado to me, or straight-line winds. I didn't know a thunder-storm could do so much damage.

[Susan Pevensie]

It wasn't the thunder and rain that caused the most damage but indeed the wind, there was allot of straight line winds as far as i've felt, but apparently there is speculation if it was a twister.