BIG HILL SLIDE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1922, Page 8

BIG HILL SLIDE.

PLIGHT OF THE OMOANA ■ SETTLERS. ACCESS CUT OFF. A reporter of the Hawera Star has been on a visit to the Omoana district, which was recently visited by a cloudburst. He says:— At short intervals the road had been wholly blocked by the veritable slipping of the mountainside. It was. looking at the picture presented, as though the fingers of a giant had scored deep the hillside In all directions. The tornado —for no other word fits the storm that burst on that strip of country stretching a few miles wide down the valley—evidently struck the top of the ridge’s and simply scored the face of the steep, rugged country, stripping it clean in sections of the whole of the bush and undergrowth, and bringing it down into the valleys on the one hand and over the road in others. All along the road for miles past Omoana, down the Mataiwhetu and into the Whenuakura, is one long succession of slips along which now, after many weeks, all that has been possible has been the clearing of a bridle track, which in many places is on the edge of a yawning cliff, and must need constant work to keep open at all. Down at the foot of the hill a tributary of the Whenuakura crosses the road, and there a huge gap has been made, the masses of driftwood and npoil that were brought down having cleaned out the filling left a gap down which and up the side a slippery, muddy track has been made, which is just passable to pack horses, which slither down and up the other side. And this only to horses used to this sort of rought work, by settlers miles beyond, spurred on by‘the dire necessity of securing supplies of food. Up the other side the Whenuakura Valley begins and the road —save the mark —winds up past Gower’s (the last Eltham county ratepayer) for a considerable distance, over slips and making detours to get through at all, until the worst and. most hopeless spot seen on the tour is reached —Brady’s filling. That is sufficient to appal all but the stoutest heart. A huge filling that it is estimated ‘*9ok four to five thousand yards of

spoil has been swept away, and left a hole in the road probably 60 feet across. The only way o-f getting supplies through—and the plucky young settlers way back, aye and some of their womenfolk, tackle this big task —is to pack horses and let them slither down another and worse piece of slippery, muddy papa face and plough through a muddy tunnel put in formerly to carry away storm water. Then along a bridle track and up a steep hillside that looks like the face of a cliff. The energetic settlers are doing work on the road themselves —a true case of self help. The amount of water that fell during this January cataclysmal storm was measured in several places in its track, and this shows that in a couple of hours fully ten inches came down, As one looked from the top of a ridge the setting sun showed up the full extent of the damage. One saw mile after mile of this succession of slips. The greatest damage, besides the road, was the miles of fences carried away and buried. It would take far more labor and expense to recover these than to make new fences. The trip taken out to this strip of country convinced one that it is a job far beyond the capability of any county council to deal with. It is a problem that demands the utmost help possible from the Government. The settlers who went back years ago and in good faith that access would be provided and maintained have a just and right claim on the Government, and it is hoped that this will be forthcoming, so that It will be possible for them to carry on with a h,ope of ultimately overcoming all their difficulties.