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Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 98, 19 January 1933, Page 21 (Supplement)

Bf --n O gain an adequate impression of the changes that have been made in the Ahuriri Lagoon and flats area extending as far round as Wiat Shore, beyond to Bay View, and southwest toward Taradale, it is ——' necessary to recall the past. Before the earthquake the lagoon side of West Shore was a charming seaside resort. . Boats moved across the "lagoon, regattas were held on its placid tidal waters, and there was communication by shallow-draught little vessels with such places as Park Island. Here and there on the lagoon were dotted islands, the rights to which were held by Maoris—islands that are now for the most part the highest points of the huge area of land that thrust the waters from its broad acres two years ago. Throughout Napier’s history portions of these flats near the town were reclaimed piece by piece, but the task of dealing with the major stretches was regarded as being one for the far distant future, when a heavy expansion of population made such an undertaking both essential and financially possible. Then came the quake, raising the land by convulsive jerks as much as seven feet toward the West Shore side and less toward the south —an average over the whole area of five feet. Experience in Convulsion. On the morning of February 3, 1931, a Napier architect with one of his assistants was motoring out toward Bay View. He had crossed the large concrete bridge over the Tutaekuri and was bowling along on the perfect road, admiring the sunlit waters on either side, when the smiling day became a chaotic nightmare. A yawning crack appeared in the road ahead. Into it slipped the rear wheel of a large lorry some distance in front. The wheel was instantly wrenched off and the lorry swung round and swayed drunkenly. The architect's car skidded and bounced on the crumbling surface of the road until its owner brought it to a standstill, jumped out, and was thrown on his face. His assistant also stepped on the bucking ground and was sent sprawling. A man and a woman in a car behind left theii’ machine and scrambled up a bank. These people, temporarily .marooned on the ruins of the main road north from Napier, were witnesses of a sight seen once in the lifetime of few men—the sight of a vast volume of water receding like a mill-race from the land. They saw what was probably the only form of tidal wave associated with the disaster, when the waters of the lagoon, encountering in their seaward rush the southern fringe of West Shore, surged up almost to the doors of some of the small houses on that narrow spit of land. Afterward they secured boats and assisted in conveying some of the residents to places of safety. Violent Reclamation. That Napier architect and his assistant saw the violent reclamation or partial reclamation of more than 7000 acres of land and the improvement of about 2700 acres more which, though