FOOD POSITION SERIOUS IN ISOLATED VILLAGES; COMMUNICATION DISORGANISED

Chronicle (Levin), 6 February 1947, Page 5

FOOD POSITION SERIOUS IN ISOLATED VILLAGES; COMMUNICATION DISORGANISED

Press Assn.-

By Telegraph .

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Received Thursday, 10.30 a.m. LONDON, February 5. More villages in north-east England have been isolated as a result of a further four to six inches of snow last night. The shortage of food at farm houses and outlying hamlets is growing more acute and it is suggested that if the position worsens supplies may have to be dropped by parachute. North Norfolk caught the full force of the blizzard. Cromer, until noon today, was cut off by ten feet snowdrifts, and the thirty-five minute bus journey took nearly three hours. v Yorkshire and Derbyshire are having their worst weather t$for many years. All the main roads are blocked and many roaas are impassable in Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire and on the Welsh border.

Most of Devon and Cornwall is icebound. The Great North Koaa ueoween Stamford ""nd Grantham, where a huge traffic jam occurreu yesteraay, is stni biocKed by deep snowdrifts. Tne Automobil2 AssociaUon, issuing a warhmg, said tiie roads had never been so bad Ag some piaces in Lincolnshire oniy the tops of telegraph poies can be seen above the drlfts. The snowdrifus aie disorganising the railways, and have held up coal trains. Fiity-eight thousand workers m Birmingnam have stopped work or are on short time. Twentyeight cotton mills at Blackburn, Lancashire, have closed because of bhe 1'uel shortage. Police, gamekeepers and volunteer scarch par.fi es have found no trace of Richard Grisham and his wife, whc were on holiday and waiked out into the blizzard at Goathland, North Yorkshire on February 3 and have not been seen since. Skiers struggled to outlying farm houses in the hope that uifc couple were sheltering. New drifts from ten to twenty feet deep have now immobilised the cearchers. Snow fell in London last night. R.A.F. hien at a wireless station six miles south-west of Louth, who have been cut off for more than two days, are waiting for aircrai. to drop food by parachut'e. The Paris Weather Bureau warned that a new "cold offensive" v/as threatening the city after the two-day thaw. Heavy snowfails art predicted in the Arderines and Vosges.