DISASTROUS FLOODS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 926, 13 February 1872, Page 2

DISASTROUS FLOODS.

CHARLESTON. Our correspondent writes that the greatest floods known in Charleston occurred on Thursday last. It rained incessantly oh Wednesday night and all day on Thursday. A-tremendous body of water flowed down tho Kilo river, causing it to rise to a great height. This height was occasionedby a number of trees, &c, coming abreast the bridge, causing the water to back considerably. Fears were entertained at one time that the bridge would not withstand the pressure; shortly before dark the water began to subside. Mr Poole's residence, about 300 yards above the bridge, was completely submerged, and the occupants had to vacate it early in the evening. Much damage has been done to property, mining and otherwise, in the district. GREYMOUTH. We have condensed the following account from the " Grey River Argus," of February 10. The flood of Friday, February 9, 1872, will long be remembered in Greymouth as the most serious calamity from which the community suffered during the first seven years of the settlement of the West Coast. Of the Government township, the greater part has gone to sea, or has floated up the lagoon in an indescribable state of wreck. From Johnston street seaward the entire line of buildings fronting the river has disappeared, and the buildings immediately behind the front row, including Strike and Blaokmore's brewery, are left in a situation of considerable danger on the occasion of any future floods. With the buildings went the protective works, and the lower part of the town presents altogether a sorry spectacle. As if the flood were not a sufficiently serious disaster of itself, a fire broke out in the same block, and although it fortunately did not spread, there was seen the rare sight of burning buildings tumbling into the turbid waters and floating out to sea. Fears are entertained of loss of life, but there is no definite knowledge of more than one fatal accident. From a house which floated away, containing an entire family, one young person, a son of Mr William Dale, was washed away and drowned, the other members of the family narrowly escaping a similar fate. There is a story of one man having been seen on the roof of a house, as it was washed out to sea, but there is no certainty that such was the case. It is true that Mr George Sadler, of the Reefton express, floated down the stream for some distance on one of the buildings, but, at some risk, he reached the shore. At the upper end of the town, the protective works end wharf have been sadly shaken, a considerable incision having been made in the stone and timber embankment contiguous to the Gorge, and Custom-house wharf, having subsided into the river for nearly half its length. The most noticeable and prominent feature of the effects of the flood, however, is the disappearance of the river frontage of the lower township. The rain which resulted in this heavy flood began to fall on Wednesday, and during all that night it fell so constantly that many feared the occurrence of an unusual fresh, but nothing more. Before this time, precautions had been taken by the Mayor and others to warn the inhabitants of all the low-lying parts, and to remove all families who desired to be removed. Towards dusk the number of emigrants from these parts increased, and all the principal hotels became crowded with family groups and their household gods. Thursday night, and the locality where the danger was concentrated was between Boundary street and the European Hotel. Not only were the protective works at this point most insecure, but an immense gathering of snags and of timber intended for the repair of the works accumulated in front of the houses, and began to act as battering rams against the flimsy fronts. Even at that hour the appearances were really alarming, the creaking of the houses, and the collapse of verandahs, indicating the immense pressure before which the buildings ultimately succumbed. The destruction of the block to the seaward of Johnston street is, of course, the great feature of the effects of the flood, but in every corner of the town there has been some destruction of property, which, at another time, would be prominently recorded by the paragraphias Immediately below the boatmen's huts begin the protective works, and here begins also the work of destruction. The stonework still stands, thoroughly well washed, but the wooden piles protrude themselves like the quills of the fretful parcupine, and they Berve as a sorb of preliminary introduction to greater damage further down. This damage has been done to the Customhouse Wharf. As far down as the Transit Shed, it has gone bodily into the river, bearing down with it two coal barges, one belonging to Messrs M'Lean and Co., and the other to Mr George Martin. And in the latter there were eighteen tons of coal—an item only of Mr Martin's losses, for at the other end of the town his coal wharf and hotel, tho Cove of Cork, were both included in the general disappearance of property. Rhodes's Ferry Hotel and Rudd's store, shared in the general flood. Moored at the lower end of the Custom House Wharf was the steamer Dispatch, with steam up and anchor out, and thero she remained in safety,

but in her vicinity a humble structure occupied as the wharfinger's office came to grief, subsiding into a hole, and departing "muchly" from the perpendicular. From this point down, Mawhera Quay presents the appearance of a well-washed shingle bed, but is perfectly safe for traffic. Alongside Mawhera Quay, the Charles Edward, Waipara, and. Garibaldi were stoutly moored, and no accident happened to these sea-going craft, but that prominent item of the marine architecture of the port, "the doctor's yacht," met with an accident, though it was not a source of total loss. For Wickes's timber-wharf and its load of timber considerable fears were entertained, but there was not much of the timber floated away, and some of what was floated served a useful purpose, with other material, in stopping the stream from impinging too smartly on Ashton's and other contiguous hotels. It was immediately beyond this point that the serious damage was done. The protective works were snapped suddenly off at this point, and as the river ran furiously past, it rapidly excavated the brushwood and shingle of which the bank was formed, and made a straight course setf-ward. The result was the the reduction of the -roadway to a mere narrow strip, until, at Skoglund and Purcell's corner, it. disappeared altogether. Their store stands on the brink of a steep bank, alongside of which the river flows as deeply as at any part of its course, and their buildings and others adjacent are in imminent danger, on the first occasion of a flood, of following all the lower part of the town which has already gone. Their premises form the one corner of Johnston street and Richmond Quay. On the opposite corner stood the Golden Age Hotel, and it was the first in the series of hotels, stores, and houses which went to sea.

The begining of the disaster, in fact, was at the remote end of the town, and from that end upwards building after building reeled and fell as the water undermined the foundations or beat upon the walls. Of these buildings the majority made a straight course for sea, with all their contents, except their living inmates, who made hasty escapes. Others were carried landward in the direction of the head of the lagoon, and two of their number occupy sites on the. Camp Reserve, Arney-street. One house only of the whole block was left, and with it the flood performed the freak of turning it completely roundonits foundations. So thorough was the sweep of the river frontage at this part of the town that nothing now intervenes between the river bank and Strike and Blackmore's brewery, and that establishment nows forms as important a feature in the architectural aspect of the town as it does in the list of local industries.

Besides other bridges, the Sefton Bridge has also been somewhat seriously damaged. Of the buildings which stood on Richmond Quay, or in the adjacent streets, and which were washed away, the following is a list, as far as we at present remember: — From Johnston street to Arney street—Anseline's G-olden Age Hotel; Hildebrand and Weber, butchers ; Hicks, fruiterer; two-story building, occupied by Mrs Anderson ; Joyce's old store ; Foxcroft, tinsmith ; Enniskillen Hotel; old Australian Hotel; building, occupier unknown; Giesking, store; Ship Hotel; two shops; cottage ; Cove of Cork Hotel. Arney street to Chapman street — Alcorn's old store, occupied as a dwelling-house ; Moutray bakery ; Whitmore's cordial manufactory and private dwelling; Muiler's European Hotel; two cottages, and five small dwelling-houses; boat-shed, and couple of cottages adjoining; powder magazine.

Arney street—Dale's cottage, and house adjoining Martin's stable.

GREY" VALLEY. The following account of the effects of the flood in the interior, so far as they have been ascertained, is furnished by our up-country correspondent:— The up-country districts have again suffered from the effects of a heavy flood. The weather broke on Monday, sth instant, at noon,, and it rained the greater part of that day and following night. During Wednesday it rained heavily at intervals, and from sundown that day until about midnight on Thursday it rained incessantly. The riyers and creeks began to rise above the level of ordinary floods at mid-day on Thursday, and by dark the Ahaura was higher than it has eyer been known to be. The island near Ahaura, on which Mr Gough's new house was built, was under water, and for hours the people camped on it, as well as Mr Gough and his family at the ferry, were in great danger. The river broke through at Mr M'Lean's house and rushed down the road towards the landing with the rapidity of a millrace. All the low-lying country was submerged, and great fears are entertained for the safety of the Old Ahaura, the foot of Nelson Creek, Camptown, and the Twelve-mile. The residents of Camptown were in an especially perilous position, because the Grey River has been continually eating its way in that direction during all the late floods. The farmers would suffer greatly, as the harvest work was generally going on, and great quantities of produce were lying on the ground, exposed to the soddening effects of tho fearful downpour of rain. Great damage is reported from HalfOunce to flumes and water-races, and from the swamping out of claims. One life has been lost at Duffer Creek from

the effects of a landslip, and a Berioug accident happened at Noble's from a similar cause. It is feared that the township at the Little Grey Junction will have disappeared, as the host flood made considerable eqcroachments there, It is expected that all traffic will be stopped between Nelson Cr3ek and Camptown along the " main road " of where the..main road should be, as at one part of the track the principal body of the river stream was only twelve feet from a deep lagoon which stretches away inland to the foot of the ranges. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good," and this great flood may have one satisfactory result, by compelling the Nelson Government to make their portion of the main trunk road at once, because there is no more room for experimental track, cutting.