£14,000 Bulldozer Saved From Flooded Hope River

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 10

£14,000 Bulldozer Saved From Flooded Hope River

A two-day battle to divert the flooded Hope river ended last evening when the river’s main flow was lowered sufficiently to allow a trapped bulldozer worth £14,000 to be dragged clear. The bulldozer, weighing 20 tons, was caught in the river on Tuesday afternoon after stalling in mid-stream. A rising torrent buffeted it and finally washed right over it

Mr R. Hogg, of Ashburton, was driving the machine across the river half a mile north of the newly-completed Hope river bridge on the Lewis Pass main highway. His firm, Burnett Motors, Ltd., is doing protective work on the banks of the river for the Ministry of Works. A wave washed into the bulldozer’s air intake and the engine stalled.

Marooned and drenched, Mr Hogg had to wait until Ministry of Works employees saw his plight and summoned help from the nearby Poplar Hill station. Farmers turned out, and using a horse and ropes, pulled Mr Hogg to safety. With no other suitable machines nearby, Burnett Motors had to bring two big bulldozers from Ashburton and Hanmer Springs, and on Thursday morning they started a diversion cut. The machines worked with swirling floodwaters tugging at their tracks. By yesterday afternoon they had opened a long channel a chain and a half wide to funnel away the worst of the flood from the stranded bulldozer. In a short time the water dropped 3ft.

At 6 o’clock last evening the bulldozer was pulled clear. It was placed on a 40-ton transporter which will carry it to Ashburton today for repairs, expected to take two months.