STREAM FIRED

Evening Star, Issue 20556, 7 August 1930, Page 14

STREAM FIRED

AMAZING GALE INCIDENTS POLICE GUARD HOLES IN ROAD. A stream covered with a film of petrol was set on fire at North Weald, Essex, endangering an inn and a number of cottages; houses were struck by lightning, and many of London’s suburban streets were flooded—in some cases to a depth of one foot—during a fierce thunderstorm which swept over London and other parts of the country on May 28. The weather experienced in London can only bo described as “freak.” There was a sharp fall of snow in some places, while the sun shone brilliantly only a few yards away, and in other districts there were heavy rains, thunder, and lightning, and a depressing atmosphere. Glasgow experienced a remarkable heat wave. The sun temperature topped 100 degrees, while it was 72 in the shade, the highest recorded this year in the city. A network of storm centres is spreading across Great Britain from the Continent. BURNING STREAM. The stream at North Weald which runs through the village was impregnated with petrol believed to have leaked from the aerodrome storage tank, and it burst into flames after a particularly vivid flash of lightning. The flames spread some distance, and for a time the Woolpack Inn and some cottages were in danger. One of tho occupants of the cottages was so alarmed that she ran out of her house with her child in her arms and took refuge in the village post office. Mr J. Ashton, the licensee of the Woolpack Inn, in endeavouring to put out the flames was burned about the face and his clothing was scorched. The Epping and the aerodrome fire brigades eventually extinguished the outbreak, which was tho second of its kind at tho same spot. At Barnet a star-shaped body fell from the sky exploding in mid-air and scattering small sparks in all directions. Some of them struck a tree and stripped off the bark. The vagaries of the weather in London were astonishing. LIKE A CLOUDBURST. Snowflakes as large as half-crowns heralded a violent storm .n Eltham. Rain later fell in torrents, almost as though there had been a cloudburst. The High street became impassable for some minutes. Manholes were forced up, and in Well Hall road, traffic had to plough through a foot of water. Road surface material in the Archery road district was washed away or left in heaps on lower ground. No rain fell in Woolwich Town, two miles away, but tramcar drivers on the Eltham-Woohvich service reported passing through heavy rains and then into fine weather near the Royal Military Academy. Clapham Common and Balham had a tropical-liko downpour, but Tooting escaped. • Subsidences were caused in North End and George street, two of tho principal shopping centres of Croydon, by the torrential downpour, and police guards had to be. placed over each spot. Lawns and gardens in Park road, Carshalton, Surrey, were turned into miniature lakes iu the space of a few minutes, and a number of houses and garages were flooded. Lightning struck a house in St. Philip street, Battersea, shattering a chimney, wrecking an outhouse, and breaking two windows. Bricks from the chimney smashed the roof of the house next door and damaged the bedroom. Two women narrowly escaped injury. Lightning also struck a house in Peterborough road, Fulham, occupied by Mr Nicholas Barrass, a London city missionary, and the adjoining house, occupied by a Mr Bint. A chimney stack collapsed and damaged some rooms of the houses. A hailstorm at Southend village covered the roads and gardens with white, and young crops suffered severely. One cultivator said that his crops looked as if they had had a scythe over them. An hour and a-half after the storm had passed, heaps of hailstones remained piled in corners. Tho first presentation of the Northampton historical pageant duo to be given last night was postponed owing to a heavy thunderstorm. A heavy thunder and rain storm swept east mid-Cheshire in the evening, flooding cottages, roads, and fields of crops in a few minutes in low-lying places. At night two air liners bound for Croydon were forced down on the Kent coast in a dense fog after crossing tho Channel. One machine, flying from Cologne to Croyden, landed in a field at Littlestone, while a Dutch air liner, unable to make progress, came down at Brooklands.