WILD MOMENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1939, Page 6

WILD MOMENTS

WHIRLWIND STRIKES TRAMWAYS BARN

LARGE SECTION OF ROOF TORN AWAY. SCATTERED OVER EPSOM TROTTING COURSE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. A whirlwind struck the roof of a large tramways barn at Epsom at two o’clock this morning and carried away a hundred feet of the roof, which was scattered over the adjoining Auckland trotting course. Pieces of the roof were found over 400 yards away. Other pieces pierced the plate glass windows of the main trotting grandstand. The night foreman, Mr A. Calder, said the whirlwind came with a sudden blinding flash and terrifying roar. There was no time for the 22 men on night work to escape before the portion of roof was torn off. They dashed out, but the whirlwind ended as suddenly as it came. One man had a narrow escape. He was cleaning a tramcar when a twenty-foot long beam of six by four limber fell perpendicularly within twelve inches of him, clearing a tram-car and falling into a pit. Numerous fences and wireless poles were blown down in the Epsom district. A large wooden garage was flung bodily into the next section, coming to rest on its roof about forty feet away from its original site. The car remained in its original position undamaged. After rising steadily yesterday, barometric pressure fell during the night, and at ten o’clock today was at 29.12. Conditions are squally and cold.