Psy-op Island of Madeira

[xileffilex]

A long way from Brussels, this outpost of the EU is a good place to stage the odd psy-op, with extreme weather or extreme tourism events.

My suspicious are raised by the short section of a torrent which is not moving the adjacent vehicles at 0.21 in the video…it looks like CGI.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/portugal/madeira/7287269/British-woman-dies-in-weekend-Madeira-floods.html

Of course, there was a serious landslide and flood
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cvs50/6853780420/
However, this photo taken 2 days later shows stones carefully piled against vehicles which hardly have a scratch or watermark on them..
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cvs50/6999940637/

We note in the Telegraph article that a woman was washed away from a taxi which contained four other people who all survivied bar the anonymous “taxi driver”. Hmmmmm
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/british-woman-dies-in-madeira-floods-foreign-office-checks-for-more-victims-7302757.html
The victim – named as 50-year-old Pamela Gaines from East Yorkshire – was apparently swept away in Funchal, the capital, when the taxi in which she and her husband George were travelling was engulfed.

Mr Gaines and another couple in the car were said to have received minor injuries but the taxi driver was also reportedly killed.

This looks like a staged pile of old bangers and a few trees dumped between otherwise undamaged buildings. The potted plants on the immaculate white balcony look in great shape, not even knocked over.

More recently we have an easy event to pull off, an unnamed British subject living in Austria who falls to her death in a remote place, wity cameras handily placed to record the recovery of the “body”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3975450/British-woman-43-dies-falling-300ft-hiking-trail-island-Madeira.html
27 November 2016

Back to the selective taxi deaths…
Pamela Gaines, 50,
actually she was 53, born Pamela Woodmansey in 1956
from Garton on the Wolds, near Driffield in East Yorkshire, was among 42 people killed in the deluge and associated landslides.
She had been travelling with her husband George, 54, a company director, and two British friends when their taxi was swept away by a torrent from a swollen river on Saturday morning.
Mr Gaines and the other couple, named locally as Roger and Gillian Wilson, managed to escape the vehicle and were treated for injuries at a local hospital.
But the bodies of Mrs Gaines and the driver were recovered yesterday after being missing since Saturday.
As their three sons arrived on the Portuguese island last night, neighbours described them as “a lovely couple”.

The two British couples were holidaying together and had left their hotel in the capital to stay overnight in a 19th-century converted manor 15 minutes drive from Funchal.

[Really? Why would they do that?[

But as they left the city on a stretch of road beside the river, their vehicle was swept off the tarmac and down the hillside towards the sea in the worst floods on the island for a century.

Mr Gaines, who is also known as Philip, was said to have received minor injuries.

Said by whom?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/159761/Holiday-island-flood-woman-mourned

I don’t see any reference to a funeral anywhere. Amazingly, another Driffield businessman, like Mr Gaines, was living close by on the holiday island yet did not know George/Phil
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/east-riding-man-tells-madeira-horrors/story-11957708-detail/story.html

Former East Riding councillor Mike Clubley escaped the devastation, which was only several hundred yards away from his home.

The Driffield businessman has been inundated with calls from family, friends and other concerned well-wishers from the town.
Mr Clubley has seen first-hand the wreckage that claimed the life of holidaymaker Pam Gaines, from Garton-on-the-Wolds, near Driffield.
Speaking to the Mail by phone from his home in the capital Funchal, he said: “The disaster did not touch us, and we consider ourselves to be among the lucky ones.

ng> but we certainly feel for her family who are having to come to terms with the tragedy.”

http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/shock-woman-dies-madeira-floods/story-11957399-detail/story.html
February 23 2010
The couple’s three sons, Andrew, James and Tom, immediately flew out to Madeira – off the north-west coast of Africa – to be with their heartbroken father following Saturday’s tragedy.
Other members of the family were too upset to talk about the death of Mrs Gaines at the family’s home in Main Street, Garton-on-the-Wolds, near Driffield.
But a statement from them released through the police said: “We are all shocked and deeply saddened with no words beginning to describe what we have lost.”

Friends have said their “thoughts and prayers are with the family”.
Company director Mr Gaines and his family are well-known in the Driffield area having previously lived in the villages of Kirkburn and Skerne.

From the Telegraph, op. cit.

A five-year-old local boy and his mother were killed at the same spot.

The three British survivors were treated in hospital for their injuries. Mr Gaines and Mr Wilson were both discharged within hours but Mrs Wilson remains in the Nelio Mendonca Hospital with chest injuries.
A spokesman at the hospital said her injuries are not life-threatening but they expected to keep her for up to ten days.
Amazing!

Swiftly moving onto the inevitable inquest…
November 23 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332397/Madeira-mudslide-George-Gaines-tells-moment-wife-swept-death.html
Choking with emotion, Mr Gaines told an inquest in Hull how he saved himself by grabbing on to a car but never saw his wife of 35 years alive again.

I thought he was in a car?

Ah, the story had been honed by the time of the inquest
The taxi journey became so treacherous, with one road blocked by a landslide, they decided to turn around and head back to their original hotel.

But the Mercedes taxi was suddenly hit by a pick up truck, which had been sent flying by a tree trunk.
Mr Gaines said:’It spun us round and we ended up going back down the hill. You couldn’t see out because of the mud and we hit some more cars that had been washed down.’
He managed to wind down a window and saw several people running down the road. ‘At this point the taxi driver said we should get out for our own safety,’ he recalled.

‘We all got out and there was water and mud coming down the road but I saw a clear piece of bank and road surface.There was a lot of debris coming down and it was a dry area, I thought if we just got out here we could assess the situation. I got my wife there because it seemed to be the safest spot.

‘I put my wife on the bank and then I was hit behind my knees. The whole bank was coming towards us. I got hit by the torrent. I tried to stop myself by grabbing hold of bushes. I was going very quickly.

‘I got out of the flow into a car park and stuck my arm out to stop myself. I thought that if I didn’t stop I was going to die.’

Mr Gaines, a director of two agricultural companies, managed to save himself by grabbing hold of part of a car which was being swept down the road<.

Passers-by rescued him and he was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

He was later told the body of his wife had been found. The driver of their taxi also died , but another couple who shared the vehicle with them escaped unharmed.
Who are these “passers by” in a flash flood where cars are being washed away?
These are the two companies
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07513648/officers
with James Alexander b 1978
and
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06638950/officers
with Andrew [Lee] b October 7 1973 when his father had just turned 18 and his mother was bareley 17, if not still 16. [they married two years later]
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Third son,Thomas George has no business directorships, now in Berlin
https://www.facebook.com/thomas.gaines.1485

no mention of Maderia or Mum there, but…on year later

June Woodmansey Not quite how I remember you!!! You here or still in China? Say hi to your Dad from us both! 🙂
18 June 2014 at 14:16

Thomas Gaines I am still in China working hard. its a very different pace of life. i hope the family is well. i will pass on your regards to my father.
20 June 2014 at 10:02

Cue Madeira flora

Stand back for David Bowie connection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Woodmansey
Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey (born 4 February 1951, in Driffield, East Yorkshire) is an English rock drummer from Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire, best known for his work with David Bowie and The Spiders from Mars. With the death of Bowie in January 2016, he is the last surviving member of the Ziggy Stardust lineup
hence Tom’s page “Thomas George Gaines and the Spiders”

and who just so happens to be the brother of the allegedly dead Pamela Gaines.

[xileffilex]

I said there was no funeral, but there was a quickly arranged “memorial service”
Memorial service at Driffield Parish Church on Friday, 5th March at 12 noon. Donations in Pam’s memory may be received for Lowthorpe Church Fabric Fund.

First report of the death of a UK national 21:32 February 21 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8527446.stm
interesting video – why the sudden wave caught by the camera at 0.07?
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the family of the dead Briton had been informed, but added: “We are not able to release any further details at this stage.”

More images
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8526288.stm
looking rather like the result of a dam burst.

Next up – forest fire disasters

[xileffilex]

I’m not quite sure what was holding up Mrs Gaines’ probate. The probate was granted with will on 14 February 2012 just shy of two years later. The inquest was concluded by November 23 2010.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-11820757
Coroner Geoff Saul recorded a verdict of accidental death.
Mr Gaines…. said he was trying to lead his wife of 35 years to a patch of safe ground when he felt the wall of mud hit the back of his knees and knock him off his feet.
Mr Gaines told the inquest: “There was a dry area and I thought if we could get there we could assess the situation.

“I put my wife on the bank and then I was hit behind my knees. The whole bank was coming towards us, I got hit. I tried to stop myself by grabbing hold of bushes.

Witness to the devastation, Mike Clubley, is actually former Conservative county councillor
Richard Michael Clubley, b 1937, elected in 2003
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/loc03/pages/EastRiding/electionmay03.html
Moved to 7A The Horseshoe, Driffield in 2009 formerly of Grey Gables, Driffield.
24 February 2010 [that’s four days after the flood] – country usually resident – United Kingdom=
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/01760627/filing-history

[Author]

Posts