Storm Cuts Power At Tauranga

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31881, 8 January 1969, Page 20

Storm Cuts Power At Tauranga

(New Zealand Press Association) TAURANGA, January 7. Widespread damage was caused to installations of the Tauranga Electric Power Board by an electrical storm early this morning.

“It was a very savage storm and we are really in trouble,” said the board’s acting chief engineer (Mr E. J. Hussey).

Everything possible was done by every available man on his staff to restore power as quickly as possible but in some areas repairs were not conv pleted until this afternoon,

The first break in the supply was recorded at the control panel at 2 a.m. By 5 a.m. the panel was choked by complaints. The peak occurred at 7 a.m., when calls came thick and fast from consumers.

The worst affected area was east of the Papomoa Hills, where a regular transformer was burned out, plunging the district in darkness. Six transformers in the board’s area were burned out and high tension fuses wera blown all over the district. Some high tension cables were hit by lightning and were burned, the ends falling to the ground. Tauranga city suffered only two breakdowns, said the chief electrical engineer (Mr J. G. Dickson). Both were of short duration and no serious damage was done. The

emergency supply power plant at the Tauranga Hospital was used for a short time. The storm had played havoc with telephone communications in the area, said a spokesman for the Tauranga Post Office. No lines were down, but lightning had blown telephone fuses over a wide area as far as Te Puke, he said. The meteorological office at

the Tauranga Airport recorded 1.55 inches of rain for the 24 hours to 9 ajn. Private rain gauges at Otumoetai and Pyes Pa recorded 2.60 in and 2.51 in for the 24hour period, and the gauge at the Tauranga City Council’s filtration plant at Oropi registered 2.53 in.

Campers throughout the area spent their morning cleaning up and drying out after a “wild and woolly night.” Hawera experienced its second heaviest rainfall for a 24hour period in the last 10 years, when 3.81 in was recorded up to 8 a.m. today, but no flooding or serious damage was reported from the surrounding district. The heaviest rainfall in Taranaki was believed to be at the Dawson Falls Tourist Lodge, 2970 ft up Mount Egmont, where continuous rain for 42 hours built up an impressive total of 15.52 in. But the proprietor of the lodge, Mr J. Wells, said that this was not particularly heavy for the mountain.

Heavy rain also fell at the Stratford Mountain House on East Egmont, but the telephone line to the mountain house was out of order and today’s reading could not be obtained. Hawera’s record for a 24hour period in the last 10 years was 4.52 in, recorded on February 2, 1967.