LIGHTNING STROKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1939, Page 5

LIGHTNING STROKE

DAMAGE DONE TO HOUSE IN AUCKLAND OCCUPANTS NARROWLY ESCAPE INJURY. POWER SUPPLY INTERRUPTED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. Extensive damage was caused by lightning striking a two-storeyed house in Norwood Road, Bayswater, the home of Mrs E. Newcombe, at 4.45 yesterday afternoon. Tearing away about fifty tiles from the corner of the roof, the lightning apparently travelled to the ground between the outside wall of the house and the lining, leaving a trail of damage, including a hole in the dining room wall downstairs. Two yards away from the hole, which was about two feet square, was Mrs K. Fowler, sister of Mrs Newcombe. “There was a tremendous explosion and I was knocked over,” Mrs Fowler said. “Pictures and plaster seemed to be everywhere. I had 'just disconnected the radio or it probably would have been damaged.” Upstairs were Mrs Newcombe and her son, Mr K. Newcombe. The latter was almost knocked, down. Glass was scattered over a bed on which Mrs Newcombe had been resting.

The'lightning broke windows, splintered picture-rails and dislodged wall plaster in several rooms, knocked pictures to the floor, extensively damaged an electric fuse board, and burst water pipes at several joints, the water running everywhere.. The occupants of the housei as soon as they recovered used buckets and basins in an endeavour to protect carpets. A tree in the garden was stripped of all branches and bark from a height of twenty feet. Lightning struck power and telephone lines in the Belmont district causing dislocation. Power was restored in the Takapuna ’area about an hour later. Many transformers were • fused in the Whangaparaoa, Silverdale and Dairy Flat districts.