HIGHWAY UNDERMINED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1941, Page 6

HIGHWAY UNDERMINED

NGAIO GORGE HAVOC

INDUSTRIAL PLANTS SUFFER

The flood yesterday wrought havoc in. Ngaio Gorge, and this morning more cliffs and cuttings were crumbling. The small Kaiwarra Stream, usually inconspicuous, turned in a few hours.to a muddy torrent, which swirled down the valley, carrying embankments before it. A large industrial storage plant near the mouth of the gorge had much of its equipment surrounded by muddy water, notwithstanding stopbanks which had been built round it. The banks carried away and once the flood waters entered they acted as retaining walls which held the water just where it would do most damage. Gangs of workmen were at once given the task of. cutting down portions of the banks at the southern end to release the water. , The gas and water mains in the Neeco factory on the banks of the Kaiwarra stream were carried away yesterday, and the motors and part of the plant were inundated. There was considerable damage to manufactures in various stages of completion. Today fire hoses are being used to clear the mess of silt and clay from William Cable and Co.'s foundry andworkshops. There will be serious delay in the moulding shops. A little further up the gorge the road to Ngaio was dangerously undermined, and this morning only about half the road, for a cotjsideraWe distance, was usable. V Oil drums placed down the centre prevented traffic from going near the crumbling edge. SLICES OUT OF HILLS. Across the stream, on the Wadestown side, flood waters had, scoured out slices of the hills and deposited tons of earth on the railway line and in the stream. ' All the way up to Ngaio slips, large and small, had fallen, some of them half-way across the road, and numerous' streams which had sprung %-up overnight poured across the pathway into the Jorge below. Notwithstanding the placing of lamps and warning signs at most of the danger points, the gorge last night was an anxious trail for motor vehicles to follow.

The Ngahauranga Gorge Road was not damaged.