'Grim Picture, Of Damaged Bridges

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30998, 2 March 1966, Page 1

'Grim Picture, Of Damaged Bridges

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 1.

Working in appalling conditions, Ministry of Works men today began the task of constructing two Bailey bridges that will span the washed out section of the southern motorway at Slippery creek, just north of Drury.

There was a w’elter of road and bridge damage throughout the area, but the motorway was the biggest and most important repair project the men faced.

“We expect the bridges to be in position some time on Wednesday,” said the District Commissioner, Mr E. A. Flynn. ‘ As soon as they are in position the section of motorway now closed to traffic can be’reopened.

Mr Flynn said the picture was “pretty grim” but no accurate assessment of the damage would be possible until the floods had subsided. Another Bailey bridge is to be constructed where a river bridge between Katikati and Tauranga had been washed away.

For the first time on record the pumping house at the Papakura Military Camp was awash, said Mr Flynn.

and the electrical pumps put out of action. Emergency measures had been adopted to keep supplies flowing.

The Hunua Gorge road was closed —washed away in several places—and would remain closed for “some time.” Damage through the gorge was severe.

Mr Hugh Lees, of Papakura. said a wall of water over 12ft high had swept down the gorge on Monday night, leaving a trail of havoc that would take six months to remove.

The flood came when the half-completed Papakura dam gave way, he said. With the wall of water came tons of soil. A 30-ton roller was also swept 100 yards. Disruption to Post Office services was extensive. The

co-axial telephone cable between Auckland and Hamilton, normally buried several feet underground was left hanging 30 feet in the air after a big slip five miles south of Mercer.

The cable was stretched and put out of action, cutting services to Wellington and the South Island.

By 10 a.m. Post Office engineers had succeeded in establishing an emergency sendee. A number of communities had lost their telephone links and the amateur radio emergency service had stepped into the breach.

Only Pukekawa was still without telephones. The Auckland-Whangarei micro-wave system had been affected when lightning hit a repeater at Brynderwyn.