SYDNEY’S CYCLONE

Evening Star, Issue 17541, 22 December 1920, Page 10

SYDNEY’S CYCLONE

WIND AT EXPRESS SPEED. FERRY SERVICE SUSPENDED. HUGE WHEAT LOSSES. Sydney papers to hand contain accounts of th 6' cyclone disturbance which took its toll of property and crops in Sydney and surrounding districts between the 7th and 11th inst. Six inches of rain fell in a few days, tremendous seas and cyclonic winds compelled the suspension of the Manly ferry service for a night, and the damage to the wheat crops is calamitous. What the destruction would represent in hard cash (says the ‘ Daily Telegraph’) is appalling to contemplate. *lt may well run into millions of pounds. The bald fact is that it will take a huge slice off the expected wheat cheque. The prospects of a crop worth over £20,000,_000 was in sight. Fortunate, indeed, will the farmer be if that prospect has not already been discounted by more than 10 per cent. Most people in a position to make a general mental survey place it much higher. A fortnight ago it looked as if the State would harvest something over 50,000,000 bushels of wheat. Men who had been over thfe’ greater part of the wheat belt could not size the crops up at less than an average of seventeen or eighteen bushels • some said twenty bushels. That bright picture was dependent upon the grain as it stood in the fields being got safely into the bags. But the elements have decreed otherwise. The best that can be hoped now is that the wdrst is over; that conditions will permit of the best possible save being made from the wreckage. The crops almost everywhere were°so big and heavy that they were easy victims to storms. They were too well grown and too heavy-headed to stand np to wind and pea-ting rain. Farmers have for weeks been in trepidation of the wheat going down. Never were crops more valuable, ; ’p c it seemed almost too much to expect that good fortune would attend the growers until the grain that was to retrieve the disasters and failures of the past three or four years was all in tho bags. It is rather difficult yet to gauge with anj exactness the scope of the damage and the districts that have suffered most. But storm conditions have been almost general thioughout the wheat belt, and it does not appear that any considerable area has escaped. SCENE AT SYDNEY HEADS. During Saturday, the 11th, the boats on the Manly service had a lively time fighting the breakers at the entrance. = When the battle cruiser Australia entered tho Heads about 8.30 one of the Manly boats was being badly treated by the heavy seas running past North Head* and when the full force of the waves and wind got her the steamer swung right round, and for a time it looked as if she would have to turn back. But the vessel plugged along, an object of considerable interest to those on the Australia as she was tossed and pitched by the seas.