VIOLENT STORM.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17608, 10 November 1922, Page 7

VIOLENT STORM.

HOUSES WASHED AWAY.

SYDNEY, November 3. It is many years since Sydney has been visited by an electrical storm so violent a» that of last Thursday evening. Fifty points of ram fell m four minutes, equal to 7*in in an how, white the heaviest continuous fall, which loJlowed a definite thunderclap, amounted to 132 points in twelve minutes. The nlieht of several families was seriii. Raging' torrents of water üburbs. Houses were nno hnu<se two women clung to a wara otS floated near the ££ in this way saved their Uvea. JThey were rescued by several young men who IZm through the rooms and burst the S open. Hundreds of telephones SS? our of order. -Bain charged through the roofs of some of the theatres A ferry steamer crossing the was held up for fifteen minutes SvhfgteUe density of the The most sensational incident was thit in a house at tWs Eric and Alfred Mills, or t-o ran down to the house, anTfound that the water had burst in ?he glass doors, and had flooded the Winent room almost to the ceihng. Tnined bv Jack Bell and CWenco OibsoTof % Reynolds street, they made therwav along the higher passage on the street level, and down the stairs at the rear, to'the second room from the front. Here they found five feet of water, the farniture floating, about like? small arks. They dived m and warn te the door leadmg to die room in which the two women, Mrs lavlor and her mother, Mrs Tapp, aged 82, "BreaSfopen the door with brooms they founl Mrs Taylor chngng tea floating wardrobe with one hand and supporting her mother with the other. Getting Mrs Taylor on his back, one oi the mfn swam back with herthrongh the doorway to the stairs, and neipea he? STwmle the others rescued Mrs Tapp in a similar manner. Both women we?e compeltely «?¥u B ted,j and had thev been imprisoned in the room many mo/e minutes the water would have rSed the ceiling. Mrs Tnpp was so tadi that%he was taken to the Balmam Another young man, ken, of Paddington, who helped to rescue the women, swam through the adjoining rooms to the door, and smashed it open with a ke *tte. The rush of water was so great that he was bumped against the doorway and swept dowTthe g vard, to find himself across th? room and against the opposite wall Jumping from piece to piece of the floating furniture, he made his way to the stairs, and so to the safety of the upper floor.