Flood Danger As U.K. Thaw Begins

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30041, 28 January 1963, Page 9

Flood Danger As U.K. Thaw Begins

(NX Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, January 27. Water and coal shortages, the worst power cuts in national grid history, prospects of serious flooding—these took the edge off Britain’s joy as the nation slowly thawed out this week-end.

The long-awaited thaw began yesterday, spreading over the country to marie the end of the 35-day cold spell that has blanketed the British Isles with snow, ice, and freezing fog since before Christmas.

The Midlands and south-east had the worst power cuts for 35 years yesterday as accumulated ice and dirt short-circuited insulators on electricity grid pylons.

Water was rationed in many places and people queued for coal as hundreds of lorries and special trains hauled fuel supplies to areas where shortages were worst.

Today water-supply havoc was likely as the thaw epened bursts in frozen water pipes and mains, according to the “Sunday Express." The newspaper said close watch was being kept on river levels all over the country for rapid rises which could lead to flooding.

A Devon River Board spokesman was quoted as saying: “If the thaw speeds up, millions of gallons of water will pour off the moors. It could be disastrous." Yesterday’s blackouts were drastic in the Luton area, of

Bedfordshire, where more than 80,000 homes, farms and factories remained cut off for 17 hours and longer. A United States Army generator was linked to the Luton and Dunstable hospital. Gas supplies also dwindled, because electricity is needed to keep the gasworks operating. Police toured streets earning people to switch off all gas appliances. Luton’s misery worsened when water supplies also ran very low and in parts of Bedfordshire the supply failed completely. Hundreds of lorries and special railway trains hauled fuel, such as coal and paraffin, to cities and towns throughout Britain. Britain’s loneliest innkeeper, Mr John Kenny, of the Lion Inn at Blakey, in north Yorkshire, had his first customer in three weeks yesterday—the village postman, who

walked four miles across desolate moors to deliver his mail. Snow has isolated the hotel since New Year’s Day. In spite of the thaw, soma areas were still gripped by winter. Helicopters dropped emergency supplies of food to families on four farms in remote areas of north Yorkshire. It was the first supply of food the families had received for a month. Bristol had 350 fractured mains and water tankers and civil defence volunteers were called in yesterday to deliver supplies to houses. In south Devon, more than 50,000 houses were already without water because pipes had frozen solid.

Two women and a girl of nine were killed when the double-decker bus in which they were travelling was involved in a collision with an empty coal lorry on an icecovered road in east Glamorgan, Wales. In Bedminster, Bristol, a woman and her two daughters were found dead in their home. Police said they had apparently died from a leakage of coal gas from a burst pipe.