HURRICANE’S HAVOC

Evening Star, Issue 19844, 18 April 1928, Page 1

HURRICANE’S HAVOC

IN THE NEW HEBRIDES, ■The following are extracts from a Ip.tter from Air Matt. Wells, planter, Main Island, New Hebrides, to a Sydney friend : “On the night of I'Vbruary 7 we got the biggest hurricane I have seen in twenty-five years, ft started at 4 a.m., and in two hours it played havoc, like 1 have never seen before. At first tho barometer was 29.G0, in half an hour 29.40, and in an hour more 29.10. After tbat I do not know where it fell to. “To give you an idea ol the force of the wind—it' Lore the roof off my house, and landed it completely ruined 100yds away; tore up all my orange trees by the mots, and coeonnuts also, snapping off many at ]l)ft from the ground. “Altogether I lost over 1,000 fullbearing palms, and many young ones just showing flower, laying other palms over at nil agio of 45deg. Not a leal is left on the cotton bushes, nor the scrub. Yon have seen pictures of Flanders during the war. Well, the trees were blown to pieces, and only torn stumps left. Get the picture? My cutter was capsized ; new cotton shod and boathouse blown over to an angle of 45deg “ I had to take refuge under the beams of my floor to escape from flying objects of all sorts, and lay on the ground not daring to shift for over two hours, and tho water poured like Niagara Falls all over me. When 1 came out I had not a dry rag to put on. “The Santo plantations caught it had. too. All the lannvlies were lost except Dehochades. Al. Natnrol's ship foundered in the canal, and ho got ashore on the shin’s inbb'. The rest ot the crew were drowned—twelve hoys, I heard; also a couple of ships are piled up nt AT. Ratnrd’s, and reports say that he lost 50 per cent, of his plantation.”