BLENHEIM ALARMED BY EERIE BLAST

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 207, 21 November 1927, Page 16

BLENHEIM ALARMED BY EERIE BLAST

RECALCITRANT WHISTLE (Special to THE SUN.) BLENHEIM, Saturday. The eerie-shrieking of a tractionengine whistle that, started to sound the usual warning at a crossing, steadfastly refused to stop, brought to Blenheim’s 5,000 inhabitants last evening first the chilling fear of Impending disaster, and then a good laugh at their own expense. Firemen, mistaking the sound for an alarm of fire from the gas works whistle, rang the fire bell. Tennis players and bowlers abandoned their games and poured into the streets. Helmeted firemen on bicycles pedalled frantically toward the fire station. Business was abandoned. All this time the traction-engine kept up its disconcerting wail and soon nearly all of Blenheim’s 5,000 residents were in the streets, anxiously wondering what disaster threatened. A special squad of police turned out and the river-board inspector, fearing a cloudburst in the hills, telephoned desperately up-river, seeking information. The power board’s line gang assembled in case the alarm concerned a break in the main 33,000-volt transmission line. At this stage, with the aid of a wet sack, the traction engine crew succeeded in mastering tile recalcitrant whistle. After that there was a dead silence and everybody went home.