SHIPPING DELAYED

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 112, 17 November 1928, Page 9

SHIPPING DELAYED

GREAT GALE IN BRITAIN AEROPLANE'S NARROW ESCAPE British Offlr'.al Wlroloss. (Received 17th November, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, 16th November. London was swept by a great gale this afternoon, the wind attaining a velocity of 64 miles an hour. Much damage was done, and telegraph and telephone lines suffered considerably. The force of the wind was so great that at many points people wore blown down. Even rougher seas than yesterday's raged in the English Channel, accompanied by torrential rain. Steamers in the Bristol Channel took refuge in Barry Roads, and no ships were able to leave Swansea. It was impossible to land gold or the West African mails at Plymouth from the liner Aba. The mail steamer, Maid of Orleans, the afternoon boat from Boulogne to Folkestone, had considerable difficulty in reaching its berth at Folkestone. Even when it got into harbour,, tho wind and tide were so strong that it took twenty mimites to get it to the quayside. An Imperial Airways aeroplane from tho Continent had a tremendous fight against the wind. When flying over the Maid of Orleans, it dipped and only cleared tho wireless mast of tho steamer by less than ten feet. The Southern Railway steamer Vera crossed from Southampton to Guernsey in the teeth of the gale, and the passage took fifteen hours. Thero were 70 passengers aboard. Tho Vera arrived to-day at St. Helier, Jersey, nearly 24 hours late.