ALARMING STORMS

Hokitika Guardian, 13 November 1931, Page 5

ALARMING STORMS

IN SOUTH ENGLAND. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 11. The gale in the English Channel has continued with unabated force to-day, ■and the whole of the South Coast has experienced storms of exceptional severity. An Armistice Day service arranged on the parade at Hastings had to be abandoned, and took place in the White Rock Pavilion.

' The wind reached a velocity of 70 miles an hour in some places. Heavy seas invaded the streets of several of the coast towns, and premises were flooded in Portsmouth and Folkestone. The coast roads' are black with debris. On the Isle of Wight, where the concrete sea defences were- broken down, masses of. masonry‘were hurled 30yds. iShop fronts 60ft back'-'from the sea were smashed. The worst of the storm struck the coast between Eastbourne aud Folkestone, where the action of the Channel, currents, through recent centuries, has piled up many square miles of land between the old Cinque Ports oi Rye and Winchelsea and the sea. To-day the sea breached the forechore of shingle, and waves 39ft high dashed against the bungaloWs, demolishing many. Numerous families rare now homeless. The Thames, at high tide to-day, was again exceptionally high, but it passed without causing- nnv damage.