NORMAL AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 18, 23 January 1939, Page 11

NORMAL AGAIN

SUPPLY OF POWER

HAND CLEANING CONTINUES

Though there were further interruptions in power supply on Saturday' night, with a 40-minute black-out in the Hutt Valley from 10.13 and early morning breakdowns in parts of the Hutt Valley Power Board area, Wellington City carried on with power from Evans Bay steam station until yesterday afternoon,, when the full

load was taken over by the Government system. It is hoped that from now onwards the position will be normal, but Evans Bay i's standing by in case of further trouble. Of the two transmission lines leading to the Khandallah sub-station, one has been cleaned pretty well throughout the salt crust sections and is reported as satisfactory, and the hand cleaning of the insulators of the second line will probably be completed by "this evening; between 30 and 35 men are engaged in this work. The heavy rain which fell in Wellington on Saturday night .did not extend far north, otherwise it would have ensured the final removal of the salt which has caused all the trouble. Both lines should be in commission tomorrow, but everyone concerned is "touching wood" and hoping for the ■best

A Wellington man who spent a three weeks' holiday camping at Waikanae and at other points along the coast said today that from his experience no tale of flying salt spray and' encrusted insulators on power lines was too tall to believe. His car was white with salt after one night in the open without a cover, and night after, night and day after day the wind just blew in a succession of westerlies, said by people who had lived on the coast for years as more constant and unpleasant than anything they could remember. Two and three miles back from the coast willows were burned by the salt-laden winds to an extent he had never seen before. .