FLOODS AT WHANGAREI.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 464, 19 April 1890, Page 5

FLOODS AT WHANGAREI.

RESULTS OF A WEEK’S RAIN. (From the “ Northern Advocate.’ ) After a singularly mild season the weather broke on Easter Monday with easterly weather and rain, and, excepting a few brief lulls, has been steadily falling over since. It set in very heavily on Monday, and that night caused a fresh in the Whangarei River, bringing down logs and other debris. One large log fouled the mooring chain of Mr Steadman’s yacht She and carried her under the overhanging bank near Mr Horn’s, where she filled and sank.

By Tuesday afternoon all the creeks and watercourses about the township were swollen to their fullest extent, and their turbid waters were dashing down to the harbour at a velocity of five or six miles to the hour. One of Mr Dobbie’s paddocks, used as an apple orchard, was entirely under water, and tons of mud were swept down upon it and contiguous places. From Wednesday morning the rain began to slacken in volume, and the shallower watercouises on the flat near the harbour began to somewhat lessen their width. Further inland the water pouring down from tho ranges began to assert itself. The Hikurangi flat presented one broad sheet, nd Mr Forsyth’s 500 acre farm, at tho lower end of the district, was completely under water. Mr Kolleston’s new hall had a foot of water on the floor, and the carpenters engaged upon it had some difficulty in making their way to the hotel. The foundations of the bridge at McKenzie’s tannery, in the Horahora Valley, wero undermined and a breach made in the upper planking, while the culvert on the Otaika road, between Messrs North’s and Donaldson's, got choked upand resulted in a large hole being mado in the roadway A pool of water six feet wide now marks the place.

Mr Aldred in coming in from Otonga on Wednesday had to swim the Wairua and other rivers no less than four times.

On Thursday the Wairua had risen to such an extent that the water was up to the edge of the bridge, between Ruatangata and Purua, as high as it was last winter during the heaviest rain. It was expected that if the rain kept on the bridge would bo submerged on Thursday evening. Districts further away of course have been cut off from communication. The miners in Puhipuhi must be having a rather uncomfortable time of it, while their storm-stayed visitors will be decidedly homesick.