COAST POUNDED

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 185, 4 May 1936, Page 10

COAST POUNDED

Seas Wash Over Queen’s Drive FISHING LAUNCH LOST Roof Blown Off Island Bay House Host of the damage .the storm did at Island Bay and its neighbouring seaside suburbs occurred about midday on Saturday, when the wind was at its height and the high tide allowed the heavy seas running in from the south to reach higher up the beaches than can be remembered. Residents agreed that the storm was the worst since that which drove the Progress ashore, and some thought it worse. The principal damage was the loss of a 40-foot fishing launch which had been at anchor in the bay, and the unroofing of a house. Breakers rolled right up to the road nearly all along the Queen’s Drive, and at places actually rushed over the pavement. The wrecked . launch was the San Marco, a 40-foot fishing launch which, with the tackle aboard, was valued at £750. Her owners, Messrs. J. Mouat and P. Tait, purchased her about a month ago from Wilson Brothers, of Island Bay. She was used for line fishing. The vessel was about 15 years old, but a 18-21 h.p. Lister diesel engine was recently installed. The engine and some of the fishing tackle was saved on Saturday night, but the hull was regarded as a loss as soon as she was cast ashore. As in the case with most Island Bay fishing launches, the San Marco was not inst | ed. The engine was valued at about £370. The San Marco dragged her mooring about midday and touched the rocks at the eastern point of the bay about 12.30. It was nearly high tide, and one of the huge seas lifted her over a hundred feet further inshore, and left her on the top of the reef at a place which is usually high and dry, but which was then being swept by the waves. There she lay on her beam ends with a hole at her waterline on the upper side. As the storm continued she was rocked by the seas and suffered further damage. Flying Timber. While the launch was grounding it house in Oku Street, off Milne Terrace, high on the hill above Cliff House, was unroofed. The wind lifted the whole roof off with a noise which a neighbour described as like thunder and lightning close by, and carried parts of it about a hundred and fifty yards. The house is on a spur with a high bank and a road below, and a row of houses across the road and further below. Nearly all the roof was carried across the road and crashed on the houses below, or in their back yards. A large piece of the roof fell in one back yard and the bathroom of the next house was damaged by debris falling against the wall and crushing in the window. Some of the timbers pierced the wall of this house like darts. A third house, and the one farthest from the unroofed one, suffered still more, a gable end being knocked off by a piece of the flying roof. All the top of the,brick chimney of the unroofed house fell into the street in the cutting below the house, and the flying timber broke a pole and brought down the electric power wires. The house is occupied by Mr. L. H Thomas, and Mrs. Thomas and their two children were inside when the roof was blown off. The wind raging round what was left of the building was too strong to allow them to leave it immediately, in spite of a window being blown in and the house showing other signs of disintegration. The contents were hastily shifted to the Ice end of the house for comparative protection until the weather al lowed their removal after the storm The house is a six-roomed dwelling, said to be one of a number of factorycut houses imported and erected about eight years ago. The house next door, of similar construction, was unroofed by the wind several years ago. Small Boats Lost. Two large launches which had been loft on the foreshore at Island Bay above normal high water mark, were washed higher up. but they were not damaged. Fishermen worked hard at times hauling their dinghies up to safety, most of them having to be brought right up on Io the road. 'I ho lishing launch Valeric, moored close 1,, the beach, bumped another launch and serious damage would have followed had not fishermen ventured out in a dinghy late on Saturday afternoon

and shifted her to a better mooring. A number of small rowing boats which had been left between the road and the sea in some of the suburbs were washed into the sea and sunk.

The building of the Island Bay LifeSaving and Surf Club was badly damaged by the sea. Standing on the beach, the building was often completely surrounded by the sea on Saturday afternoon. The front wall was smashed in in several places, notably in the men’s dressing-room, and the waves washed in, carrying great quantities of sand On to the floor. Yesterday morning members of the club were shovelling out several feet of sand left in the men’s dressing-room. Although its building is so seriously damaged, the club has not suffered greatly in any other way. The storm left the beach about the clubhouse several feet higher than before. Boathouses Undermined. At Turakina Bay, Palmer Head, between Lyall Bay and Breaker Bay, several boathouses and shacks between the road and the sea were demolished, and an 18-foot rowing-boat in one of the boathouses was washed away and dashed to bits on the rocks across the inlet. An outboard motor-boat was lost in a similar manner and a small open launch was damaged before it could be hauled to safety. The boathouses were of crude construction and little more than shelters for the fishing boats they housed, and their value was not great. They were undermined by the waves reaching an exceptional height up the beach. A tiny oneroomed shack on the beach lost its front wall facing the sea completely and the sea washed in, heaping boulders and shingle against the back wall. A man and a woman preparing to spend the week-end in the shack had to quit it hastily. At all exposed places along the coast between Ohiro Bay and Breaker Bay where the road is not very high above the sea it was strewn with shingle, rocks, sand and seaweed after being swept by the seas at midday. The waves swept up the beach and over the road at Ohiro Bay, leaving the bitumen strewn with debris. Between Ohiro Bay and Island Bay the paved road was covered completely for hundreds of yards with shingle and rubbish, including quite large boulders, washed on to it by the waves, so that a stranger would not have known the road existed. For several hours the Esplanade at Island Bay was within reach of the waves, which sometimes rolled up the beach and over the concrete wall on to the footpath and roadway, carrying sand and seaweed. Most of the roof of an old quarry building at the eastern end of Lyall Bay was torn off by the wind and sheets of iron flow across the road dangerously. Drenching Spindrift.

Lyall Bay suffered little, except that tbe ocean ate into tlie new road which has been built low down along the beach past the airport. Houghton Bay and Breaker Bay were not seriously affected, although all aloug the coast tbe water, which receded very little after high tide, boiled within a few feet of the road and spindrift swept across the road like rain. In tlie first little buy to the west of Lyall Bay the spume rose from the water like steam from a great cauldron, being carried high in the air like a thick white fog and drenching the houses, passing cars and all about in salt water.

By nightfall on Saturday tlie storm had moderated and the high tide at 1 a.m. did not cause any further damage. In the brilliant sunshine and <’ump:irative calm yesterday. thousands visited Houghton Bay, Island Bay and Ohiro Bay to see tbe wreckage and watch tlie great swell bursting over I lie rocks ami thundering on I lie beaches. Tlie < ily Council promptly cleared the roads of debris with graders. Kain Gauge Wrecked. A minor example of the force G’j; wind was provided at "'l’he Dominion office, where the rain gauge, securely fastened to tlie roof, was wrecked, tlie apparatus being Hung with its fastenings 10 yards across tlie building before it. was brought up by tin; parapet. So no rain was recorded last night. Hokitika experienced a violent westerly gale. On Friday tlie barometer dropped suddenly, recording 28.87, which was tlie lowest for years. Tliis was followed by a heavy westerly gale of extreme severity. The blow continued through tlie night, moderating somewhat on Saturday morning, but, continuing from the west. Heavy showers were experienced. As a result of the heavy blow much minor damage is reported. Tlie most, serious was caused by electric power line interruptions, resulting from trees falling over the lines.