The Floods in Hawke's Bay

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 134, 6 December 1893, Page 2

The Floods in Hawke's Bay

LATER PARTICULARS. APPALLING RESULTS. LOSS OF LIFE. THE COUNTRY DEVASTATED. HUNDREDS OF SETTLERS RUINED. A CLERGYMAN WASHED OUT TO SEA. (per press association). Napier, December 5. The new road to Taradale is almost impassable, and for about a mile has several feet of water on it. Clive and Meanee are one stretch of water,- and the people are being taken from their houses in boats. The police wired from Clive this afternoon that the majority of the j residents are now removed from their homes to the hotel. They saved no thing, and accommodation has been arranged for a number of the sufferers in Napier. Extra food supplies are being de» epatched to Clive. The Mayor is taking steps to alleviate immediate distress. Telegraphic communication south of Waipukurau was interrupted about nine o'clock, but it was then known the floods were rising, and that in> mense losses of sheep had occurred. Stil^the settlers on the plains around Napier were not alarmed. Tutaekuri was .not in great volume, and there were excellent mouths to the Ngaroro and Tuki Tuki, and it was thought all flood waters could escape. There was a great deal of surface water lying about, but no greater disaster than the loss of potato crops and cut hay was feared.

After midnight, however, the waters began to rise with phenomenal rapidity, and to cover the whole country. Messengers galloped into town for boats, and these saved many families. In some cases the water was so high that holes had to be cut through the roofs to remove the inmates. The large embankment erected by Nelson Bros and a few other settlers at Clive some fourteen years ago for the protection of their properties, broke and deeply flooded the adjoining country. Though the rain ceased this morning, and the water is rapidly subsiding, the roads were impassable this afternoon, and no accurate information as to the extent of the losses can yet be had. Practically the whole of the crops of the Ahuriri plains and nearly all the stock must have perished. Many settlers will be totally ruined. At Waipawa the families on the low-lying sections were carried into safety, but it was impossible to communicate with the houses on the river bed, there being no boats. The Herald's correspondent telegraphs this afternoon that the house's seem to be falling over, and it is feared all the inhabitants are drowned east of Clive. The lower part of the plains around Napier had not been visited by boats at 4 o'clock this afternoon, and it is feared there will be a loss of life there. So far, only three deaths have been ascertained. Mr Donald McFarlane, brother-in-law of the manager of the Maraekakaho station, and four settlers were endeavouring to secure a suspension bridge, when all were washed away. Two made their way to the shore, two got on an island, where they were rescued by Maories, but McFarlane was drowned. The Rev S. Douglas, Presbyterian Minister, wished to get to Taradale, and accepted a lift on a butcher's cart. At a low part of the road the current was so strong that the cart was overturned and Mr Douglas was swept away to sea. A boy at Ulive, name unknown, was also seen to drown. On the higher parts of the plains about Hastings, the water is not so deep, and there is no current, but the drains are all backed up, and the whole country is under water. The rain threatens to return, and if it does so, the disasters must be still greater.