DESTRUCTIVE STORM AT TE AROHA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2666, 13 August 1889, Page 2

DESTRUCTIVE STORM AT TE AROHA.

One of the biggest gales which this district has encountered .since, and very probably before, civilised people pitched their tents in it, has raged incessantly here since Friday. For a correspondent the weather, especially bad weather and consequent bad roads is a good. thing to rely on, but when the weather gets to such a pitch as we havo had it during tho last thirty-six hours, when one has to hang on to window frames and doors, and all but stuff children into crevices to keep tho wind out, you may reckon the weather item on this occasion is not a last resource. Such, hnwever, has boen the experience of your correspondent since Saturday night, and it is only now between the strong gusts of wind that a coherent record of the damage done can bo given. That the damage is very great can be seen by the following, which cannot of necessity be a full record :— Club Hotel, entire balcony blown down ; Ebert's Palace Hotel, great damage; Thomson's Family Hotel, dining-room unroofed and large stabling accommodation blown down ; Hirst's factory, Coulthard's flax - mill, Bradley's stables, Russell's cottage, unroofed. Bew's brick premises have been severely punished ; in fact it is impossible to say h»w much damage has been done, and extremely dangerous to venture outside to inquire. Great havoc have been done to fencing and outbuildings, but the most serious damage appears to havo befallen Mr Downes, of the Club Hotel, whose balcony, as before mentioned, has been blown away, and his pigs and piggery in one act have been wafted into the Waihou Rrver.