FLOODS IN THE SOUTH.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 15 July 1912, Page 8

FLOODS IN THE SOUTH.

CANTERBURY'S EXPERIENCE

RAIN AND FOG

BY TELEGRAPH—PBESS ASSOCIATIiOIS

CHRISTCHURCH, July 14. The rain ceased to-day in the greater part of Canterbury. The flood at.Flaxton was the biggest experienced for many years. This morning the flooding caused by the combined forces of the Eyre and Oust rivers at their lowest reaches was, if anything, worse than yesterday. The main road and sideroads at Flaxton were not safe for traffic. All the country is a perfect sea, and, although the outfall into the Waimakariri was fairly good, and the river at the Kaiapoi bridge went down three feet at low tide, it will be some days before the floods get off some hundreds of acres of arable land. The Eyre and Gust rivers have covered some hundreds of acres more than the last December floods, or of the previous July floods. In fact, they equalled the deluge of the Jubilee year flood on July 6, 1887, and stood a fair comparison with the Easter inundation of 1874, as well as that of September, 1890, on which latter occasion the railway traffic at Flaxton was suspended practically for a fortnight. Last evening's train passengers for Ohoka and Bennett's were conveyea by a three-horse drag from Kaiapoi to Wilson's siding. At Waverley there was over three feet of water on the road, which entered the floor of the vehicle. The strong force of the currents and floating logs and timber made the journey in the dark, lighted up by two lamps on the drag, a somewhat adventurous one.

A dense fog in Pegasus Bay delayed the ferry steamer Maori for about an hour and a half this morning. The vessell left Wellington at 8 p.m. yesterday with a strong southerly wind against her/ but when she was well doAvn the coast the wind died away to a calm, and at 3.30 a.m. to-day, when the Maori was passinlg Cheviot, she ran into a very thick fog, and had to proceed at reduced speed across Pegasus Bay. No sign of land could be seen as the steamer neared Lyttelton Heads, but the renorts of the detonating fog horns at Godley Head were heard plainly. The Maori made her way up Lvttelton harbor in the dense fog, the first land being sighted after passing Gollan's Bay, find she arrived in port at 8 o'clock. The Maori did not connect with the first express for Dunedin. but. considering thfi exceptionally thick fog, Captain Aldwell did very well in getting into oort so early. The fog was the first bad one which has been experienced this winter, and it commoner to olear in the> outer harbor shortly after the arrival of the Maori.