1000 Marooned By Floods In N.S.W.: Widespread Damage

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 December 1947, Page 7

1000 Marooned By Floods In N.S.W.: Widespread Damage

(Rec. 11.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Floods following a cloudburst have marooned 1000 people in the Glen Davis shale oil township in Capertee Valley. A youth was drowned while swimming in the flooded Capertee river, and the body was carried downstream. A wall of water surged six feet over the only bridge leading into Glen Davis, and though it subsided six hours later the bridge is still covered with dead stock, timber and other debris. The iapproaches have been washed away. The weather bureau sees no sign of the end of the heavy rain, which is ' causing widespread damage to crops in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. It is now estimated that more than 20,000,000 bushels of wheat have been lost in New South Wales, reducing the State’s record harvest to less than 100,000,000 bushels.

As a result of the continued downpours road transport is at a standstill in many inland parts of the State and the transport of crops is held up. Many crops in the wheat belt have been turned into quagmires. In the Grenfell area dams have broken their banks. The early cherry crop in the Orange district has been completely and 80 per cent, of the later varieties in the Young district have been destroyed. At Richmond the Hawkesbury river last night rose 19 feet above its normal level.