NEW PLYMOUTH SWEPT BY GALE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 260, 1 August 1939, Page 10

NEW PLYMOUTH SWEPT BY GALE

Large Scaffolding Torn Down

UPRIGHTS SMASHED LIKE

MATCHWOOD

Bv Telegraph—Press Association,

NEW PLYMOUTH. July 31.

A southerly gale that reached a velocity of 53 miles an hour today tore down a large scaffolding, more than 40ft. high and SOt't. long, fronting the concrete stores being erected tor the New Plymouth Borough Council behind the municipal offices. Nobody was injured. At about the same time a,large sign was torn from the top of a service station and hurled to a street below. The force of the wind could be gauged from the fact that heavy uprights supporting the scaffolding were snapped like matchwood, with the result that hundreds of feet-of timber crashed to the roadway, narrowly missing power lines. The entire framework will have to be rebuilt.

Fourteen feet by nine feet, a large iron sign narrowly missed a pedestrian and car leaving the garage below. It broke six sets of telephone wires and tore away a wooden part of the building projecting above the roof. Electric power was cut off over a wide area of New Plymouth this morning. Service was restored after a few minutes, but the cause of the trouble was not located for a considerably longer time