SUBMERGED AREAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1928, Page 8

SUBMERGED AREAS.

FLOOD AT EDENDALE.

RESIDENTS' UNENVIABLE PLIGHT. GOOD DAY FOR DUCKS. Residents of some of the Auckland lowlands were apprehensive when the rain pattered relentlessly on the rooftops last night, and fears of extensive Hoods were amply realised when daylight came this morning.

As usual when the skies are mo - e weepful than ordinary, the Edendale district sutfered and showed unmistakable signs of a deluge. At the Edendale terminus a ten-knot tide flowed down the roadway, the result of the locality being an old watercourse for the liigli lands in the Vicinity of the Three Kings area and other upland areas.

Poultry for profit has long been an established industry of the district. There were instances this morning where disconsolate hens sat hopefully on their perches wishing for better times, but the ducks were in their glory. They swam in an amber-tinted flood which obliterated pretty lawns and nicely-kept flower beds, and quacked enthusiastically at the sight of water everywhere, and an abundance of it. Main Road Awash. » Edendale Road, opposite Oxtgai Street was awash. Tram lines were covered and the water was rushing across the road to find its level in a big paddock below the public school. Borough workmen were called on yesterday to relieve the pressure by picking up the footpath in several places to allow the water to get away quickly. "There's a blockage somewhere in this locality,"' said one of the workmen, "and we are having great difficulty in locating it. Cabbagq Tree Swamp area is not nearly as bad as usual, as the drains put through recently have carried off a lot of the surplus water.

The residents at the top end of Cambourne Road, near Eldon Road, have had a very unenviable experience. The top of the street has become a lake and several houses are completely surrounded by water, the backyards to nearly a foot hi depth. Kerosene tins and other debris are floating about and the whole region has an air of watery desolation. "We're having a terrible time," said a lady resident. "It always happens when heavy rain falls. 1 can't get anything dry. The conditions are awful." At the Terminus. The Edcndale Road terminus has suffered worse perhaps' than any other part of the district. A paddock covering some 20 acres, just beyond the shopping area, has been converted into a lake and the water has invaded a nurrifcer of residences oii the low-lying ground at the bottom of Calgary Street. It is impossible to reach the houses without wading ankle deep in the flood. "Flooding has always been a feature of this locality," said Mr. F. J. H. Harrison, an old resident. "We are thoroughly fed up. The terminus is going wonderfully, but each time a flood, comes we experience a further setback. The "main roads are tarsealed and fnake a fine waterway, as you can see for yourself. Each new budding that goes up acts as a sort of breakwater and the flood banks up and then comcs away in force, finding its_ own level, which is the main road, until it gets away again into the paddocks. "We are calling a meeting of residents soon with a view to urging the local authorities to expedite the drainage operations that have already been sanctioned. Around the Cabbage Tree flat area the floods are not nearly so bad now, but we are of opinion that the Edendale terminus area should have been taken in hand long before this." A Mill Race. In front of the Edendale picture theatre the water was running like a nli 11 race. It was coming from Calgary .Street, and found an outlet 'in a vacant section in Halesowen Avenue. Residents were iiT difficulties last evening and this morning and many of them had to take off boots and socks to get to and from their homes.

"One yiore river to cross," said a resident of the heights, when he reached thft terminus. He had waded through three jninor streams on his route, and it was with feelings of dismay that he surveyed a flooded terminus, where the tram cars pulled up in the middle of a miniature lake. A supply of boxes and planks was necessary so that tram passengers could cross the road and get safe on board.