THE GREY RIVER FLOODS AND BREAKWATER.

Patea Mail, 26 May 1881, Page 3

THE GREY RIVER FLOODS AND BREAKWATER.

The fresh in the Grey River on the lOth May was the largest seen for four years. The rain that night came down in torrents, and next morning a mass of turbid swirling water, within three feet of the level of the wharf, was rolling down the river, reaching from bank to bank, being dotted all over with drift wood, and here and there an old snag. As the incoming tide checked the outflow of the river to some extent by banking it up, an immense volume of water was forced into the lagoon, which flooded all the low-lying parts of the town. The Grey Argus of the 16th says:—The fineness of the previous day enticed a great many to walk to the tip-head, and the condition of the rubble work at the end of the retaining wall elicited free and varied comment. The appearance presented showed the power of the heavy sea that was breaking around the extreme end of the work on Saturday. There was an unusual width of base, consisting mostly of small and

medium sized rubble, brought down and levelled into a layer by the force of the sea. Here and there lay blocks of stone, of.from two to four tons in weight, that to all appearance had been able to resist the action of the waves, and would have remained in the place in which they had been deposited had the surrounding stones been equally large. It was evident that a considerable portion of the end of the wall had been rolled down by the sea, as the rails and sleepers had been taken up and placed in safety farther up the line. The general opinion seemed to be that the real difficulties of the work were only being encountered as the wall is being run outward, and that the farther out the work advances the greater the necessity for heavier rubble and more ponderous blocks of stone, or probably concrete blocks altogether. It is but right to add that although the wall had been flattened out and lowered, none of the stones composing it were washed any distance away.