SEVERE LIGHTNING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 220, 17 August 1939, Page 6

SEVERE LIGHTNING

POWERHOUSE DAMAGED. Per Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, Aug. 10. Ripping through the arrestors and extensively damaging the main coupling switch of the oil circuit-breaker, a direct charge ol' lightning in the vicinity of the New Plymouth Borough Council’s powerhouse at Mangold set lire to a line panel to-night. Describing the occurrence, an employee said the building rocked as il struck by an earthquake. The vibration caused by tlfc thunder shook the books from tiie shelves in the nearby house of an employee, and the telephone was blown lrom the wall of a house in Mangold ltoad- 'lhe power was not restored in that vicinity until midnight, but the failure at New Plymouth, although complete, was ol short duration. An electrical storm advancing from the west caused interruptions first in the Oakurii district by blowing out the transformer fuses at 5.130 p.m. It discharged most of its fury, however, half ail hour later in 'the Mangorei district, damaging the transformer fuses at the same time as the powerhouse was struck and most of the Mangorei ltoad telephones were put out of action. The lightning arrestors at the powerhouse could not cope with the violence of the discharge, which _ penetrated the circuit breaker and set fire to the insulation behind the panel controlling the- coastal region supply. The panel was withdrawn and the lire was easily extinguished, but in the meantime the flash had put the Public Works Department supply out of action at Stratford. “It was the most intense flash of lightning ever experienced at the powerhouse,” said Mr G. Simpson, assistant electrical engineer.

Lightning flickered constantly throughout North Taranaki all the evening, accompanied at, times by heavy rain.