A FEARFUL MIGHT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 13, 16 September 1913, Page 6

A FEARFUL MIGHT.

LIGHTHOUSE IN THUNDERSTORM The following description of a thunderstorm at Capo Fouhvind, near VVestport (reports the News) which oc- ■ curred on the night of the -ith'inst., is copied from a letter written by the daughter of a settler near Rahotu, who is staying with her brother, living close to the lighthouse:— I suppose you saw about the thunderstorm that was here last Thursday •light. It was something frightful, and lasted for six hours. There has never been anything like it seen before. It started about seven in the evening, and kept up till one in the morning. It eased off a little then, and started again at daylight, and in the afternoon, and again last night, but not a quarter so severe. The thunder and lightning seemed right on the roof all the time. It was very dangerous. All telephones are burnt out. Up at the lighthouse it was very bad. One of the worst flashes struck the riagpole, and tore a great hole in the rock at the foot of it, and blew up every board in the floor of the flag hut, burst all the walls and broke all the windows. . The things inside were knocked flying, and the walls were all splashed with mud. It looks exactly as if there had been a charge of dynamite put under it. They can't make . out how it never went over the cliff. As for the weather-vane on the flag-, . staff for north, south, east and west, the bottom half of the S. was gone, ind the top half of the N. All the telephones in the dwellinghouses and lighthouses were destroyed by another flash. Jones said that over at his house the report was like a 6in gun. ' In Mr Mclvor's house every copper ; wire was burnt clean away; even the lightning plug in the telephones was melted. It wrecked the front porch and the barometer. The door leading : into the passage was torn off one ' hinge, the lock burst, and the walls \ where the telephones were on are all cracked and burnt out. The house was on fire from front to back along the walls where the copper wires run. ' Dishes were knocked over and pictures ' shaken down, and even the bed val- ' lances were thrown back on the bed. Mr Mclvor went on watch in the i tower at midnight, and his wife was in the house by herself when it happened. She kept her senses and ran and got buckets of water and put the fire out. She needed no lamp. The 'ightning made it as light as day. She even waited 20 minutes after to see that it was all out, and then went up to Mr Mclvor at the tower. The report was terrible. Mr Mclvor thought the lighthouse was struck. If Mrs Mclvor had fainted—and it's a wonder she didn't, it was as much as any man could stand—the house would have been "burnt to the ground, and she in it. The walls are scorched for a width of about 3ft right through the house. Pieces of the binding that was around the copper wire were flung over and stuck on the cushions. The ground wire can't be found anywhere. Fred got up and came out into our kitchen about 1 o'clock that morning to see if the lighthouse was all right, and he saw the red light in Mclvor's house, but little dreamt it was fire. Mrs Mclvor is suffering from the shock now. It's a wonder it did not kill her.