Seepage Closes Hermitage Road

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 1

Seepage Closes Hermitage Road

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, November 28. The Pukaki-Hermitage State highway was closed by the Ministry of Works resident engineer for South and Mid-Canterbury (Mr E. R. L. O’Toole) this evening because the entire area is “absolutely seeping with water.”

Mr O’Toole said it was the aftermath of the snow and rain. It was likely that the road would be closed until tomorrow morning. It was being undermined. A section a mile beyond the ministry’s encampment, half way between Pukaki and the Hermitage has become a quagmire.

■ An electrical storm on Monday caused slips which blocked the road and disrupted telephone communications with the Hermitage. The road was re-opened this morning. Buses were then able to get through, but the surface later deteriorated as a result of run-off from the hillside, Mr O’Toole said. There were at least half a dozen places where water was running across the road. Shoulder-scouring also had occurred. An unsuccessful attempt was made to provide a detour on more elevated ground so as to avoid the soft stretch. “Tomorrow efforts will be made to install culverts and then build over with big metal,” said Mr O’Toole. A flood warning has been issued to farmers with stock on low-lying land after a sudden rise today in the level of the Waitaki River through rain and melting snow. Heavy rain in the catchment over the last few days—with Ilin being recorded at Mount Cook—has melted much of a recent, big fall of I snow in the Mackenzie I Country and North Otago. I