SOMERSET FLOOD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 845, 13 December 1929, Page 9

SOMERSET FLOOD

VILLAGES MENACED BY INLAND SEA DYKES BEING PATROLLED LONDON, Thursday. A serious situation has arisen in the Athelney district of Somerset, where a large area is flooded. The waters are being lashed into huge waves by the high winds, and the whole scene resembles an inland sea. A big struggle is going on to prevent the waters from breaking the dykes, which are the* only barrier between tile low-lying Sedgmoor villages and the flood. If the dykes give way a score of villages and the town of Bridgwater will he jeopardised. Provisions are being hurriedly taken to the villagers in boats, and by day and by night the dykes are being patrolled. Miles of meadows are submerged in the Wye Valley, where there are bungalow dwellings. Shopping is being done by punts. The Severn is 23 feet high. The normal height of the river is 11 feet. Many of the highways between Gloucester and Tewkesbury are submerged to the extent of six feet, and hundreds of houses in Worcester are flooded. SIXTY-ONE WRECKS EVERY GUST COST THOUSANDS Reed. 5.55 a.m. LONDON, Thursday. “Every powerful gust in the recent five-day storm must have cost us thousands of pounds,” says a leading London insurance official. “At Lloyds, who are chiefly affected, a thousand telegrams, which is an unprecedented number, were posted after the storm. “The total wrecks numbered 61, which is a record. The loss is estimated at £1,750,000 with cargoes at £1,500,000. A total of 606 vessels were damaged, of which 197 were along the British coasts. This will mean another £1,000,000, apart from the indirect losses to shipowners, which with floods and damaged houses, property and land* make the cost of the destruction unprecedented.”