Three-Day Deluge

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 2, 18 January 1937, Page 4

Three-Day Deluge

TOWN THREATENED Water Cataracts Do-wn From The Hills WATER-RACE SEVERED Damage was caused in southern Hawke's Bay on SaturdJay afternoon by Good water which followed three days of phertomenal rain. A cloud-burst in tha afternoon on the Glengarry block in tha hills &i the back of Dannevirke sent a deluge pouring over the countryside. The face feeding the reserVoir for Dannevirke'^ Water supply was hlocked or severed in several piaces by slips, but the i*e8erVoir itself was tindaraaged. The Pvincess street bridge was washed away, and the approaches to the Sitiith street and Cele street hrldges were hadly scoured. Teeming practically without abatement for thtee days, the rain saturatec! the country andd filled the waterways, which were running bank high. by Saturday afternoon. Ten, following a fierce thunderstorm in the back country, a cloudburst occurred at about 5 p.m. at Glengarry, five miles from Dannevirke. hTe rain came down in sheets and flood water cataraeted from the hills toward the town. Numerous slips came down at several points along the three-mile length of the water-race leading from springs in the bed bf the Tamaki rivei? to tho Dannevirke reservoir, which is situated apprdximately two miles 'and t a half from the town. For half its length tho race consistS of a piep-line and tho remaining portion is open. Breaks oc* etiftfed in various piaces. It is expected that water will be flowing again from the springs into the reservoir by tomorrow night. The reservoir propei was not damaged, nor did the intako pipe suffer under the strain imposed by the flood. When the rain was at its greatest intensity there was some eoneern in Dannevirke. The JPtincess etreet bridge over the Tapuata stream, which flows through Dannevirke, was Washed away by the swollen waters, and con-

siderable erosion occurred at the Smith street and oCle street bridges which take road traffic over the same stream as the Prineesa street bridge. Road metal was washed away in quantity on the Woodville-Tamaki highway, Smith's road and the Umutaoroa road. At Glengarry, where the storm was at its worst, damage is reorpted among farm stoqk an dto fencing. One farmer Iost a number Of sheep which were carried away in the torrent following the cloudburst. On Laws road, where the flood Waters poured down "from the hills, it swept through one property like a yellow river 20 chains wide and two fect deep, washing away 12 acre* of hay and 60 chains of fencing.