WORST STORM FOR YEARS

Grey River Argus, 5 December 1938, Page 7

WORST STORM FOR YEARS

City Extensively Flooded [Per Press Association.] DUNEDIN, December 4. The worst storm of its kind that has occurred in Dunedin for many years took place over the week-end, when rain, which was for a large part of the time exceptionally heavy, fell continuously for about 20 hours. Commencing about 4.30 p.m. on Saturday, rain fell without a break until about noon to-day, registering a little over 4 inches.

The ordinary storm water drainage in most parts of the city, especially on the flat areas, proved inadequate to cope with the extraordinary amount of water that was accumulating, with the rest that-the steep streets were soon carrying rushing streams. Great spouts of water gushed through the pavements, and at The Glen, which has frequently been subject to flooding, several houses were entered by the water.

The first flooding soon subsided to a certain extent, and it was generally considered that the peak of the storm was over, but heavy and unceasing rain through the night brought on a major crisis, in which houses in the flat area and in other parts of the city, and of its environments as well, had to be hurriedly evacuated at about two o’clock this morning. In one case a father had to carry his two-months-old son through water waist-deep to safety. Firemen carried an elderly woman from another flooded house, and in another case, in the same neighbourhood, a family was rescued just as the water was lapping at the mattresses of their beds. Extensive damage was done to property, as well as to the streets and roads.

On the Otago Peninsula, between Waverley and Macandrew Bay, a house, which came in the way of an eight-feet-high wall of silt that, was moving down the hillside, was completely destroyed. A stream ran through a house at St. Clair. Roads were blocked by slips and considerable minor flooding took place before the storm subsided. The Carisbrook cricket ground, where matches were in progress on Saturday, was completely covered by two feet to three feet of water to-day. The Lower Otago Peninsula road was blocked to traffic for several hours today, on account of slips, the biggest; of which was sufficiently cleared to allow of a resumption of bus services and the passage of motor cars by 1.30 p.m. Numerous smaller slips lined the side of the road, and special care had to be exercised by drivers in avoiding big boulders that had slipped from the banks and hillsides. The blocking of culverts caused a number of streams of water to flow across the road.

Several small steams on the Taieri Plain were flooded, and a number of roads were impassable to traffic for a period on account of the water, but, generally speaking, the damage there was not extensive, the Taieri River, although high, remaining within its bounds. While the rainfall over the weekend does not compare in quantity with that recorded during the flood in March, 1929, it was the heaviest fall recorded here since that visitation. At the “Daily Times” building a fall of 0.04 inches was registered, while 4.91 inches fell at the Ross Creek Reservoir, and 4.81 inches at Sullivan’s Dam. Over the period March 19-20, 1929, 10 inches of rain fell® in the Upper Leith' Valley, and 11 inches was recorded for 24 hours at Ross Creek. The relative intensity of the rain on the two occasions is shown by the fact that, between the commencement of the rain on Saturday afternoon and 8 p.m., 1.4 inches was recorded at the “Daily Times” building, while in the 1929 flood 5 inches was recorded in under six Tiours, and during another threehour period, three inches of rain fell.