GALE AT SEA

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 August 1924, Page 5

GALE AT SEA

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES ON LINER. FIFTY PEOPLE INJURED. DECK SWEPT BY SEAS. 4t CABLE—BBKBH ASSOCIATION--COPYKIGF NEW YORK, Aug. 27. The White Star liner Arabic has arrived bearing over fifty injured in a 100-mile an hour gale, which has raged in the North and South Atlantic during the last three days. Five large liners, heavily loaded with passengers, fought the gale, whipping waves forty to fifty feet in height. The Arabic was stripped of her lifeboats, and the portholes were smashed. The Homeric had eight injured and the superstructure was damaged. Captain Hickson, of the Arabic, said that on Tuesday afternoon the wind attained a velocity of 120 miles an hour and kicked up pyramids of water, which tossed the ship like a canoe in river rapids. Without warning the hurricane lifted a gargantuan sea, slapping the Arabic starboard on and piling a hundred screaming, frightened men. women and children into a kicking heap in the corner of the main lounge, mixed with furniture and paintings from the trembling walls and chunks of halfinch glass from the smashed portholes. Rushing waters swept the decks, crushed the lifeboats, twisted stanchions and flooded virtually every cabin on the upper decks. Panic ruled, and all the officers could do was to calm the whimpering women and children, while some male passengers had to be accorded rough treatment.