STORMS IN OTIRA GORGE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 April 1910, Page 3

STORMS IN OTIRA GORGE.

4 fl'Ell PRESS ASSOCIATION.] CHKISTCJHUHOH. April 19. The storms of Friday and Saturday have done a very great amount of damage at Otira. The condition on Siit-iiriliiv of soma of those who were rendered homeless by Friday's storm wns pitiable. They were out in a drenching rain, with occasional gusts of hail and snow, in a, temperature not much a hove freezing point. It was a night of ink.v blackness. Their homes were torn asunder .and hurled in fragments in all directions in some eases tremendous distances. Some tons of roofing, iron and timber have totally disappeared. The noise of the wrecking of homes was enough to strike terror to tho hriv est heart. The inmates of flio houses were rudely awakened from their .sleep with everything in total darkness, with no possibility of obtaining light, with nothing to guard them from the fury of the elements or from the flyino: debris: and ivothin<r could he done but wait for daylight, which to those stricken ones seemed never to be coming.