HEAVY FLOODS IN THE NORTH

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2996, 6 February 1917, Page 4

HEAVY FLOODS IN THE NORTH

IIIVES LOST AND .MUCH DAMAGE. . By' Telegraph—Press .Association. ■■ Whangarei, February. 5. floods of unprecedented severity, have occurred in the north. A week's rain culminated on Saturday with a phenomenal downpour, and the streetsand houses in the low-lying parts of AVhangarci wcro flooded. Considerable damage was doue to property. The water was also three feet deep in Hip dairy factory. Great daniage wiis dono to the gear at the. Wairua Falls ■ electric station. The water rose to eleven feet in the. power-house, and aportion of the canal was broken away, power and light being cut off from Whangarei. It will possibly, bo .six weeks before the ligbt is restored, lint no Hi ing definite- is known. .Railway Lrafh'o was also interrupted. ' ' . ' . Four fatalities aro reported. Two men, named Walter Jacobson and Patrick Power, living in shanties on the banks of the Wairua, , wore.swept away with their dwellings. Mrs. Jane Christie,, of Towai. when returning homo from a visit to her son. was swept away. Alt Attwood, a farmor near Motatau, was caught in the flooded area on horseback and carried away Ivy the current, horse and man being diwvncd. ' . . The flood is rapidly subsiding.