FLOOD THREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 March 1940, Page 2

FLOOD THREAT

DANGER OF WAIMAKARIRI OVERFLOWING

NO MARGIN OF SAFETY. ENGINEER GIVES WARNING. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, March lli A warning on the present margin of safety in the Waimakariri River stopbanks and on the disaster which might result from a repetition of a flood of the proportions of that of a few days ago was issued by the engineer to the Waimakariri River Trust, Mr H. W. Harris, after an inspection of the river had 'been made by trust members. “We cannot pass floods of the dimension of this record one down the Waimakariri with safety,” said Mr Harris in a brief comment to members. “The banks are designed for a flood of 150,000 cusecs. The fact that we got through a flood of 176,000 cusecs without more damage—property was little affected and there was no loss of life or stock—is perhaps 75 per cent due to luck, events being fortuitous. “It cannot be over-emphasised that we as a trust do not know if this is the biggest flood that the Waimakariri can produce. It must be stressed that if a flood of these dimensions is repeated or a bigger flood occurs, the margin of safety is non-existent. The margin of safety is not estimated by the fact that the flood has been carried by the banks with a few inches of freeboard. There must be an effective freeboard of 2 to 3 feet, yet in this flood there were only a few inches.”