STORM IN WELLINGTON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1938, Page 6

STORM IN WELLINGTON

SECTION OF NEWLANDS ROAD BREAKS AWAY. SLIPS AND FLOODS REPORTED. (Ey Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A whole hillside broke clean away in the southerly rainstorm which swept Wellington yesterday and obliterated 50 yards of the lower Newlands Road leading up from Ngahauranga Gorge road, creating a blockage of tens of thousands of tons of rock, rubble, and soil. Steady rain throughout most of the day and low temperatures made it a depressing day in Wellington. Frequently a southerly wind reached gale force and at times there were heavy showers. During the 'morning these caused a minor flood on the Ngahauranga Gorge and Hutt Roads, the trouble being caused by storm water pouring down on to the road from the hills.

At Petone and Lower Hutt there was still heavy rain, accompanied by a high wind, at midnight. There were several slips on the Hutt Road, as well as extensive flooding on the macadamed part of the highway footing the hills. The watercourses from the hills could not cope with the tremendous volume of water, and gushed over their sides, bringing down stones, boulders, gravel, clay and earth. The accumulation blocked the outlets, and in various stretches of the road there were long expanses of muddy water covering the highway between the foot of the hills and the edge of the bitumen. In parts the water flowed right across the road. The main slip was a short distance beyond Ngahauranga where loosened by an overflowing watercourse, part of the hillside crashed down on to the main road, covering the 18 feet inside stretch of macadam and spreading across the bitumen. It was soon cleared from the bitumen.