A WILD NIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 21, 25 July 1939, Page 11

A WILD NIGHT

BANKS \ PENINSULA

SERIOUS EFFECTS CAUSED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Heavy snowfalls on the coastal areas of the province were followed by a howling south-west gale which sprang up early yesterday afternoon, and continued throughout the night and this

morning. Banks-Peninsula had one of the wildest nights on record. On the more \ exposed faces up to fourteen feet of | snow lay in drifts. This morning two feet of snow covered parts of the main highway, and transport services to Akaroa and the bays were disorganised. Party telephone wires were down, and heavy stock losses were reported by the few cars which managed to get into Akaroa. The inland areas and North Canterbury did not experience such extreme conditions. There light snowfalls along the foothills. BUS SNOWED IN. With a blizzard raging at Hill Top when the mail bus from Akaroa arrived there nearly two hours late this morning, it was reported from Little River that the trip would not be completed, and the bus left there till the storm ab.ated and the road was cleared. No passengers were on the bus, *nd in no ; time the parked vehicle, acting as a windbreak, was hidden from the hotel by a great heap of snow which piled up on the leeward side. The Wajrewa County Council's grader, sent from Little River earlier this morning, had not been heard from at 12.30 p.m. today, and was reported to be blocked and snowed in. Four feet of snow lay on the Little River side of the highway. The Union Airways service was also disrupted by the storm. The northbound aeroplane did not .leave Dunedin this morning, and the southbound machine was delayed on its run to Christchurch, but was' only slightly behind schedule. * '.'■•''.■