CLOUDBURST DAMAGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 21 April 1938, Page 8

CLOUDBURST DAMAGE

HAVOC BEYOND POHANGINA. SETTLERS’ TRYING EXPERIENCE A phenomenal cloudburst, the damage from which has now been fully revealed, was experienced in the Te Awa district, in the Pohangina County, during Eriday night and Saturday morning, over 1,000,000 cubic feet of soil being washed down the Te Awa Stream and deposited on 100 acres of land belonging to a settler whose property adjoins the flat country at the bottom of the valley. A concrete culvert and spillway constructed 20 years ago Were damaged to the extent of over £3OO. The small stream commonly called the Te Awa “babbling brook,” became a raging river 30ft. wide and 20ft. deep.. The bridge on the Te Awa Road subsided at one end to a depth of three ieet, and will not be passable until a new structure is erected, at an estimated cost of £3OO to £4OO. Cotter’s Road suffered for a distance of three chains, being swept into the river 150 ft. below. The road will be closed until the week-end. Meanwhile the Pohangina County Council s workmen are making a deviation by cutting the bank away to make a temporary road. Tho farmers in this locality are without a road exit for their milk and cream, and this entails their carriage by hand over a portion of the damaged roads, lorries waiting on the other side. The Apiti-Pohangina mail service via Te Awa Road, is disorganised, as the bridge, which was affected by the terrific downpour is on the. main route. A very large quantity of timber was carried down to the flat below, the scene resembling the timber lands or the King Country. A class of timber came down the river that had never been seen in this locality. Mr Williams, a Te Awa settler, said that there had never been a similar experience of the kind there. If another flood resulted, it would probably mean that his home and adjoining building would be swept down into a nowlv-made gap, which is approximately‘2ooft. wide and 150 ft. deep. Damage to the extent of £30() was done on Mr Mcßobbie’s farm in the loss of seed and top-dressing material. that portion of Pohangina township adjoining Finnis’s Road is covered with sand and silt inches deep. The same road from the township is at present a sand bed for a distance of approximately ten chains.