STORM IN WAIKATO.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1921, Page 2

STORM IN WAIKATO.

EXPERIENCES AT TE AWAMUTU. Te Awamutu was enveloped in a brief thunderstorm of unprecedented severity last week, as briefly reported at the time by the Press Association. Additional details show that following in the wake of the showers which broke the dry period the electric out-break arrived at about 9.30 p.m.. and shook the town with a series of discharges. The thunder, as one soldier described it, resembled “the shelling of a village at close range,” and the flash and the roar were almost simultaneous; It seemed to strike the very roofs. Several people to whose houses electric wires have been installed report the. blowing out of plugs or a vision of a great ball of light. Mr. R. Grba.m, who has some knowledge of electrical mechanics, and has electric light installed in Ji is residence opposite the Anglican Church, took out the two fuses after the first clap of thunder to disconnect the lines. After waiting and thinking the worst of the storm was past, he replaced the plugs, his children watching him. Hardly had he done so than the second heaviest thunderclap sounded, with its blinding sheet of lightning, and a flame shot out from Mr. Gibson’s fuses for a yard in his direction. The fuses were smashed to pieces, and fell at his feet. On examining the pieces he found the white porcelain had been copperplated around each point where the copper wires had touched it, the fierce heat of the current having splashed it, a*s it were, with liquid copper. Heavy rain at times fell during the storm, and three-quarters of an inch was recorded as the night’s downpour. The electric light service at Cambridge was also affected.