ANXIOUS MOMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 8

ANXIOUS MOMENTS

STEMMING A FLOOD

A MARGIN OF INCHES

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

PALMERSTON N., This Day.

So serious had the position become that a gang of men toiled throughout Wednesday night in an endeavour to prevent the 15ft Hood in the Manawatu Biver from breaking through an eroded portion of the stopbank at Coley's bend, Makerua. Their efforts, fortunately, were successful in that, while they did not prevent the bank from giving way, they held the water in check sufficiently long that when it finally flowed through, the peak of [the flood had passed and the loop bank recently built around the weaker outer portion was able to hold the deluge. It was an anxious moment when the eroded outer stopbank gave way about midnight and the hollow between the two banks rapidly filled. Higher and higher rose the flood till it was within a foot of the top of the new bank. | Then the safety margin dwindled to inches and at one point, a little lower than the rest, the water began to trickle over. Bags filled with earth were rushed to the spot and the flow checked. Expressions of relief came when it was realised that the river had fallen just sufficiently for the new bank to stem the flood. But it was touch and go. But for the sand-bagging efforts of the afternoon and evening when the river was at its height, undoubtedly thousands of acres would have been inundated and hundreds of pounds in losses occasioned. The first to suffer would have been Mr. D. A. Coley whose farm adjoins the river where it sweeps around in a hairpin bend. The stopbank is some | ten or twelve feet high, so it is not very hard to imagine how deep the land would have been covered with water. When the bank gave way he immediately took steps to remove some of his more valuable assets and was relieved to see that his experience was to be nothing more than an anxious night. The flood has not been without its humorous side. Many settlers in the Opiki area had anxious eyes cast in the direction of the lower Makerua and when daylight dawned yesterday morning, away in the distance could be seen a sheet of whiteness with cows standing waist-high in the midst of it. A cry of floods went quickly round but further investigation revealed that the visitation was nothing worse than a low-lying fog.