WESTPORT.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1105, 12 February 1872, Page 3

WESTPORT.

By the Wallabl we have received Westprat papers, from which we quote the following particulars of the effects of the flood in the Boiler :— The National Hotel commenced to give way about five .o'clock on Friday morning. Nearly all the furniture was moved, ana a number of doors and windows. At seven o'clock, the ground having sufficiently given war, the building supped down ' and was hurried .away by the stream, which a few hours earlier had opened for itself a new deep channel intersecting the north spit about 100 yards beyond Tibby*s premises, more recently occupied by Atkinson, hide and akin dealer. - As the btulduig dropped below Stanley wharf }t fouled the schooner Three ftiends , causing her to drag andior, and very nearly dragging the vessel from her moorings. A large saloon adjoining, occupied in the earlier days by a publican named Blair, was the next building catried away, and shortly after Mr Munro's store, erected on piles, gave way, and its entire contents— flour and grain— or very nearly all of them were ■wept sway: piecemeal. The Upper Groin, a protective work eonsfruetedibouttwelve months, rendered important service. At that point, the force of the current, deflected by Garden Island, struck the bank with irresistible force, an<d but for the protection afforded by the substantial s^pne worfc i\ is certain fnat Wh&tf street, the Government, Bright street, and Kennedy street Wharves, and all the properties fronting the river must have been undermined and carried out to sea. Fortunately, as the waters rose a portion found a discharge through the Orawatti river, at a point a few miles up the Buller. The effect of this addition to the already swollen state of the Orawaiti - was its forcing for itself a new channel to the south, throagh which the main body of the river now discharges. The mouth of the channel is about fifty yards distani from Mt Fleming's residence on the Or*

waiti Road. Towards high water on Thursday night the lands in the direction of the Orawaiti were flooded. Suisted and Rowlands's paddocks were under water, and a flock of sheep were swimming about in the flood, but we believe none was drowned. Several residents in the vicinity were flooded out, and had to be removed to Gibson's Miuers' Rest Hotel, situated half-way between the Orawaiti river and Westport. The Government Bridge, crossing a small creek discharging into the Orawaiti river, has been destroyed, and considerable damage has been done to the roadway of the Westport and Orawaiti Tramway. Immense masses of the bank, facing the premises of Messrs Powell and Co., the Criterion Hotel. Bentley's saddlery, and the Harp of Erin Hotel, were detached, and the thoroughfare is now no longer passable for dray traffic. Messrs Powell and Co. removed their merchandise to premises in Kennedy street, and it will possibly be advisable to remove the building. On what was the North Spit, but which is now an island dividing the two channels, property belonging to Messrs Suisted Brothers and Mr Michael Organ, was destroyed, the loss amounting to fully L4OO. x The steamer Kennedy, the schooner Three Friends, and the ketch Standard were the only shipping moored ?i the river.