SEVERE INUNDATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 49, 26 January 1938, Page 2

SEVERE INUNDATION.

HEAVIEST FOR YEARS.

HOUSEHOLDERS MAROONED. HASTINGS, Jan. 25. The severity of the rainfall during the past 24 hours up to nine o’clock this morning is indicated by the following figures: Hastings, 9.68 inches; Maraetotara, 10 inches; Maraekakaho, 7.32 inches; Napier, 4.34. Mr F. B. Logan, of Kereru, said that the rainfall there between midnight and nine this morning was live inches. The rainfall at Hastings recorded by Mr H. Nelson Fowler, official observer, at Cornwall Park, for the 36 hours was 10.22 inches, which is believed to be a record since 1897, when these recordings were first made.

Some alarm was caused when the Hastings police received news this morning that the Mayor and his wife and sister-in-law were in danger from the flood waters in their home in the Pakowhai district. A party of police from Hastings left for Pakowhai, but found that they could not reach the house because of the flood-waters. A message was sent to Napier, and a police party left there with a dinghy aboard a motor-lorry. It was not until late in the afternoon that the police succeeded in reaching the house which, although surrounded by floodwaters, is situated on a rise and was in no danger.

The river was then falling and the people decided to remain in their home.

Many of the market gardeners at Pakowhai will be heavy losers. One man has 6000 tomato plants under water and another has a large area of potatoes flooded. Although individual orchardists have suffered severely from the effects of the storm it is believed the total damage to the industry wil not be so great as might have been expected. One orchardist with 3000 trees reports that 50 trees were uprooted by tho wind and a further 50 badly damaged. Road workmen in Esk Valley had to abandon camp hurriedly when a sheet of water descended on the camp. Most of the men’s belongings were washed away, and only two suitcases were saved. TUBS AS BOATS. When three feet of water invaded their homes at six o’clock this morning, ten Maoris at Tangoio Settlement were compelled to leave horriedly. Using wash-tubs as boats to carry their belongings, they waded waist-deep in the water until they reached the junction of the settlement road with the main Napier-Wairoa Road, where they reached a house and were taken in and cared for. It is anticipated that it will be some days before they will be able to return to their homes. .»

Where normally there is a creek three or four feet wide in Tangoio Valley, there is now a raging river 100 yards across. A patrol officer who reached Tangoio early this * morning said he was warned by a Maori not to go any farther or he would be washed away. The Maori saddled a horse and rode 50 yards along the road into the flood waters before the animal started to swim. These conditions rule from the Tangoio settlement road to the school. At one point on the road before the Tangoio settlement is reached the water reached a depth of 2ft 6in and stretched for a distance of 150 yards. Central Hawke's Bay, after experiencing the hottest six weeks for many years, has during the last 36 hours had the heaviest rainfall that has occurred since 1922. For the 24 hours ended at 9 o'clock this morning 555 points of rain were recorded, while in 27 hours 610 points fell. The Tukituki River, which for weeks had been phenomenally low, roso very suddenly and much country was covered with water.