THE MOST TERRIFIC KNOWN IN NAPIER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7976, 30 January 1897, Page 3

THE MOST TERRIFIC KNOWN IN NAPIER.

TREES UPROOTED.

A CHIMNEY BLOWN DOWN.

DAMAGE TO FENCES, &C.

I Perhaps the most terrifio gale that Napier [ has known burst upon the town during ! laat night, and has been raging with only j an occasional aud almost imperceptible lull i all day. Eain began to fall seriously about j 11 p.m , and shortly after midnight the j wind gradually increased iv strength and 1 violence, until at 2 am. it had reaohed a ] unparalleled pitch of tempestuous fury. j It moderated slightly between two and four o'clook, but at the latter hour it resumed its former power, the wind blowing with extraordinary force, now f'om the north-east and now from the south-east, and driving the heavily falling rain in sheets of blinding and drenching density overfilling trees, flying branches, up-rooted plants, demolished fences, aud quivering buildings. For this part of the colony the storm was oertainly of extraordinary and extreme violence, and when the damage is reckoned up—aa it cannot be till that violenoe has abated—it will be found that many of our oommunity, in town and distriot, hava more or less severely suffered. On the hills the roads wore blooked with trees torn from their roots and thrown across the thoroughfares. On several of these roads the treea had to be out thia morning to allow of the usual traffic passing through, Fitzroy road, Thompson road, Milton road, and Lighthouse road being amongst those that thus required the energetic servioes of the Oorporittian workmen. In Milton road there were unmistakable evidences of the visitation, though no sorious damage has been done. Naturally the residents of the hill distriots felt the full fury of the gale, and in one oase—that of tho residenoe of Mr T. 8. Marshall in Lighthouse road—severe injury was done. The chimney was blown down, and crushed clean through the roof into the house, the consequence being that the premises were almost immediately flooded by the heavily falling rain. The consequence will b3 no small amount of loss and inconvenience to Mr Marshall, for whom muoh sympathy will be felt. On tho flat the principal damage was to trees and fenoes, bat there were also instances of more serious damage. The iron storehouse in Oarlyle street belonging to Mr T. _. Hodson was blown down, and he hid to seek shelter from its contents, principally bags of chaff, in the houses of neighbors, a shelter that was promptly and sympathetioallv afforded. The soaffolding of the Marine Parade front of the new Masonio Hotel building was blown down, and that in Tennyson Btraet reduced to a very shaky and unsafe condition. The part utterly destroyed came down about nine o'alook this morning. First a brace gave way, and then the gale suddenly veered from south-eaet to northeast, as if to oomplete the work of demolition within tho least possible time. The timbers fell to the ground in quiok Bucoession, and before long nothing remained of that seotion of the scaffolding except a heap of assorted planks, &c, on the ground, and one or two pieoes sticking out fro™ tho otherwise bare walls. A. large gum tree was uprooted in Munroe street, and in Hersohell street a poplar was blown over, falling on the oorner of the South British Insurance Company's bniiding and just missing one of tho windows of the upper storey. The trees on the Marine Parade wero tied and braced up, with the object of enabling them, if possible, to withstand the onslaught of the elements, tome of the telegraph and telephone wires at the Keoreation Ground wero broken .own oy falling bra_cheß, and telephonic communication generally was unsatisfactory and interrupted A number of the streets in the low-lying part of the town wore flooded, but the Corporation workmen were indefatigable and limiting in their exertion, to keep the culverts dear, and so allow tho water to run off. Ihe channels in Diokens and Dalton streets proved inadequate, and early in the rooming the streets were totally submerged, altboiigb later there waß about five feet of pathway on eaoh side.