A PAGING GALE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1941, Page 8

A PAGING GALE

NORTH TARANAKI COAST

TERRIFIC POUNDING BY SEA

(P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 7.

One of the fiercest northerly gales in the memory of the oldest residents swept the North Taranaki coast on Saturday afternoon and night. A tremendous sea was running, and at spring high water the sea reached almost unprecedented heights and the coast today, bore unmistakable evidence of its effects. The wind was often accompanied by heavy rain.

At several places along the New Plyi mouth foreshore the sea swept^over the sandhills, and at Fitzroy made a breach that endangered .the motor campT behind till the tide receded. The Old j Boys' Surf Club clubhouse was partly I undermined; one pile was swept away and another left without support. A number of concrete blocks stacked on the breakwater as a protection from the wind were tossed from their places^ and it is believed some may have been 'swept ofl into the'sea. No serious damage was done to the port, but seas swept right round the pavilion on'Ngamotu beach. ' :

The^rail way station yards were for a time under water as waves dashed over the protecting wall. The part of the New Plymouth municipal baths, occupied by the caretaker, Mr. E. H. Meuli, was flooded to a depth of more than a foot and was evacuated by the caretaker and his family, who had to wade through waves breaking over the roadway. :