BLEAK STORM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1938, Page 7

BLEAK STORM

SOUTHERLY GALE SWEEPS WELLINGTON

ALL TRANSPORT SERVICES AFFECTED.

WIND REACHES HURRICANE FORCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Smashing windows, damaging gardens and trees, buffeting people who had to be outdoors and delaying railway and airway services, but wreaking little major havoc, a southerly gale lashed Wellington yesterday. Bleak with the breath of the Antarctic, it brought snow to the high country, and to Wellington the most bitterly cold day of the year. High seas ran. in Cook Strait, and shipping movements were interrupted. The gale was preceded by a period of comparative calm, and when the first hard gusts shook the houses at an early hour yesterday morning many people were caught wholly unprepared. In some cases windows were smashed or torn from their fastenings, and city firms reported a busy morning repairing damage of this nature. Gardens and trees suffered particularly heavily, branches and foliage being torn down in most suburbs, paling fences broken and similar minor damage caused. Although there were a few minor slips, there was insufficient rain to cause extensive damage of the sort. Early in the afternoon a fierce gust shattered an Bft by 6ft pane of glass in one of the main' display windows of Martin’s women’s shoe store, on the corner of Willis Street and Mercer Street. The window was of plate glass more than one-third of an inch thick, and was valued at about £3O. AIR SERVICES SUSPENDED. Air services to and from Rongotai were almost completely brought to a standstill, only a single plane leaving the aerodrome, and none arriving. Shipping was held up, wind and rain rendering work on the wharves impracticable and the high seas outside the harbour mouth interfering with coastal traffic. The ferry services, however, were maintained. There was a high sea running in Cook Strait and at Cape Palliser and Cape Campbell. The .railway services on the Hutt line were delayed by about 40 minutes through the ballast under the track on the seaward side being washed away in the most exposed part, and all traffic having to be diverted to the inner set of rails. Railcar services to the Wairarapa were delayed to a minor extent only. The first railcar, leaving Wellington at 3.30 p.m., passed through before the line was affected, and the second, scheduled out of Wellington at 6.4 p.m., was 15 minutes late. The big waves running in the were breaking in masses of grey spume over the embankment and the smoking spindrift drenched travellers on the Hutt Road behind. CAR BLOWN OVER BANK. The Petone seafront, the Hutt Road, and the east harbour bays received the full force of yesterday’s gale. At Koro Koro yesterday morning a small car driven by a schoolteacher, Miss Allen, with three children as passengers, was blown over and down a 30ft bank in Singer’s Road at a point where there is a bad wind-pocket. No one was hurt and Miss Allen and the children were able to get out of the car, which came to rest on its side, by clambering up through a door. The velocity of the g'ale was upward of 45 miles an hour, and in the gusts it reached 80 miles an hour, this being hurricane strength in the Beaufort scale of wind forces observed by mariners. The gale was the worst experienced at Wellington for some months. Temperatures at Wellington yesterday were below 45 degrees, easily the coldest and most bitter day so far experienced this winter. DAMAGE AT OAMARU. RAILWAY PROTECTION WORKS SUFFER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) OAMARU, June 13. As a result of battering by tremendous seas, a great part of the foreshore protection work carried out by the Railways Department at Oamaru in the past year has been practically nullified. For 200 yards hardly one of the many hundreds of tons of big rocks remains. Near the gasworks the stones have subsided and will not effectively prevent further erosion. Today more huge seas are doing further damage. The damage so far represents thousands of pounds. FORCED TO TURN BACK. SOUTH-BOUND AIR LINER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 13. Forced to turn back because of bad weather, the south-bound liner of Union Airways could not fly beyond Timaru on the trip to Dunedin from Christchurch this afternoon, and returned to Wigram at about 5 p.m. The liner was delayed by head winds earlier in the day and reached Christchurch from the north an hour and a half behind schedule.

Due at 1 p.m.. the liner did not arrive until about 2.30 p.m., and left for Dunedin shortly afterward. As the weather was such that it could not make Dunedin, it turned back at Timaru. When it was heading south into the gale its ground speed was only 60 miles an hour. There were only two passengers for Dunedin. Aided by the following wind, the north-bound liner reached Christchurch half an hour early.