HAWKE’S BAY FLOODS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 April 1938, Page 8

HAWKE’S BAY FLOODS

POSITION MUCH IMPROVED IN HASTINGS SERVICES BEING RAPIDLY RESTORED. DAMAGE IN FRUIT STORE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. HASTINGS, This Day. While conditions in Hastings are still far from normal, a vast improvement has taken place since yesterday. Surface water is gradually getting away and the borough’s essential services are being rapidly restored. The rain has ceased and the sun is shining at intervals. • While the main business area of Hastings escaped damage, one establishment, that of H. G. Apsey’s fruit cool store, in Hastings Street North, fared badly. The lower portion of this two-storeyed building was flooded to the extent of over 18 inches of water and thousands of cases of apples and pears are affected. A grading machine, which is urgently required for export purposes, is completely surrounded by nearly 18 inches of water, on which are floating hundreds of apples. A cooler, in which there are between 3000 and 4000 cases of picked and packed apples and pears, a good portion awaiting exportation, is similarly affected, and owing to a rise in temperature in the cooler it is considered more than likely that a big portion of the fruit held in storage will be seriously affected.