MEASURES OF HELP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1938, Page 7

MEASURES OF HELP

HAWKE’S BAY FLOODS FOOD DROPPED BY PLANE. START MADE WITH REPAIR WORK. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) HASTINGS, April 29. With the arrival of two New Zealand Air Force machines at Hastings today, good progress has been made with the distribution of food to people who are marooned because of the floods. A Baffin bomber piloted by Squadron Leader S. Burrell, Wellington, dropped parcels of food at Te Haroto and Te Pohue on the Taupo road at Tutira on the Wairoa road. Some of the other people who have been dependent for food on aeroplane deliveries were able today to get out with pack horses and their position is now much easier. With the improvement in the weather, steady progress is now being made with clearing blocked roads and erecting temporary bridges where necessary. One of the most urgent problems is to provide a means of crossing the Esk River, and for the purpose of giving access to adjoining country to lorries engaged in the restoration of roads, the Public Works Department' is now constructing a ramp at Riverslea leading to the Esk River in order to provide a ford for lorries to cross. About 50 men are engaged on this work. Settlers in some areas are able to get out, but restoration of the main highways to Taupo and Wairoa is likely to take months. COSTLY RECONSTRUCTION. Mr W. L. Newnham, chief inspecting engineer of the Public Works Department, after making a preliminary survey of flood damage, said today that repairs and reconstruction of two bridges alone would cost between £ll,OOO and £14,000. An immediate start had been made with the restoration of damaged rail and road communications, he said, but it was impossible to give any accurate forecast of the time it would take to restore to normal communications in the northern part of the province. Mr Newnham said permanent repairs to the Waitangi Washout traffic bridge would take many months to complete and would cost between £3OOO and £4OOO. Temporary repairs to the bridge would be undertaken immediately, and it would be necessary to keep the bridge closed to traffic during the several weeks which this work would occupy. Consideration was also given yesterday to the problem of replacing the bridge over the Esk River on the Na-pier-Wairoa main highway. The flood has cut a channel nearly 450 ft wide, and the new bridge, which would be a ferro-concrete structure, would have to be nearly twice as long as the former wooden structure, which was 250 ft long. The new bridge would cost from £B,OOO to £lO,OOO. To allow traffic to cross the river a temporary low level bridge will be built at once, and should be completed within a fortnight at the outside. MANY BRIDGES GONE. Mr Newnham will remain in the district for some time. He said the department was still without details of the damage on long sections of the two main highways north of Napier. “Every main bridge except one on the Wairoa highway has gone,” said Mr Newnham, “and the road round Devil’s Elbow has been completely destroyed. It will be a matter of months before that road is opened. , A special meeting of the Hawkes Bay Rivers Board will be held on Monday to consider the position created by the flood. When the Hon P. C. Webb was in Hastings yesterday he was interviewed by the chairman of the board, Mr C. Lassen, who asked for Government assistance in view of the huge expense facing the board as a result of the flood, also for the loan of Government machinery for repairing the Ngaruro River banks. Mr Lassen received a telegram from the Minister of Public Works, the Hon R. Semple, last night promising assistance and requesting an estimate of the board’s requirements. DISASTER FUND URGED. “Monday’s flood again emphasises the necessity for setting up a national disaster fund in New Zealand, from which restoration of damage and destruction caused by such happenings which occur from time to time could be financed,” said the Mayor of Napier, Mr C. O. Morse, today. "Surely after the succession of calamities which has troubled the Dominion during the past few years—Murchison and Hawke's Bay earthquakes, the trials experienced by orchardists from hail and storms and various flooding disasters, to name but a few—there is a definite call for some prompt action. I am of opinion that if the fund had been inaugurated when it was originally suggested we would now have had in hand in the region o’f £3.000.000. The lesson taught by the earthquake is one that should not have been allowed to slip by. Now we are faced with the consequences of yet another disaster, the restoration of which will mean an expenditure of many thousands of pounds." Mr Morse recalled that at the time the scheme was first suggested it had been proposed that a fund be created by charging a small percentage on all insurance premiums. The Government, of course, would be the trustee of the fund.