TORNADO STRIKES TARANAKI FARM

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6947, 28 June 1929, Page 8

TORNADO STRIKES TARANAKI FARM

Path of Devastation Left

BELTS i!K 1110 TREES BLOWN

DOWN

SEVERAL BUILDINGS DAMAGED.

< < Times ’ ’ Special. NEW PLYMOUTH, Last Night. Sweeping in from the sea with terrific force, a tornado left a trail of desolation at Onaero yesterday afternoon. Large trees wero snapped off and carried several chains, buildings laid in ruins and heavy farm implements were tossed about like corks. The damage is estimated at many hundreds of pounds. The wind appears to have taken heaviest toll on the farm of Mr. M. E. Honeyfield, Ohanga road. “Wo were in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm," said Mrs. Honeyfield to a reporter last night. “Vivid forked lightning was succeeded at short intervals by claps of thunder right over our roof and hail as big as bantams’ eggs was falling so heavily that we expected our windows to go at any moment. Suddenly, about 2.30 p.m., there was a loud rumbling noise. It seemed that we heard it approaching nearer and nearer for 10 minutes from the direction of Waitara. Then there was a crash and a tearing, rending sound as the tornado hit our cow-shod. The iron roof was lifted bodily and tho sheets of iron deposited over our front lawn."

Having splintered the scantlings of the shed and swept stools, wicker chairs, boxes of plants and a step ladder from the front verandah of tho house, the cyclone came to a belt of 24 pinus insignis trees, about 60 feet high and from 2ft. 6in. to 3ft. in diameter. Very few of them are now left standing. They were snapped cleanly in two about half-way up and tho tops wero hurled against the house. On the other side a gum tree, 60 feet high, was snapped in two and another of similar size was uprooted. Both w'ere deposited in paddocks 50 yards away. The house itself miraculously escaped damage, but a combined barn and implement shed, a strongly built structure, was razed. Two mowers wero turned upside down and a heavy singlefurrow plough, reaper and binder and a manure distributor were thrown in a heap. Mr. C. Honeyfield had just got up from a sledge in order to open a gate. When lie turned round again the sledge was upside down and the horse vra9 bolting. Pursuing a zig Ssg course tho tornado flattened fences as it tore along towards a gully at the' 1 back, of the Honcyfields’ house. There it encountered a dense clump of forest trees —large specimens of rata, rimu, tawa and karaka.. .They might have been so many matches! In less than a second they had been torn by the roots or snapped off near the ground, and tho wind had passed on through a cleanlycut swathe half a chain wide! Probably owing to a slip caused by the sudden uprooting of the trees, a considerable area on the slopes of the valley wes denuded of its turf, a bare patch of yellow clay being all that now remains.

The next place reached by the tornado was Mr. <S. A. Managh’s farm on the other side of the Onaero river. Here it encountered a room with the windows open. In a fraction of a second all the pictures had been twisted round with their faces to the walls. Mr. M. E. Honeyfield’s property is about a mile from the sea. on the inland side of the Main North road. The buildings on it scorn to have been the only ones, in the district that have suffered serious damage. The first place struck by the tornado was apparently Mr. L. Powell’s farm on the coast, at the back of tho Motonui hall. There it levelled a belt of pinus insignis trees and went on to demolish a chimney on Mr. C. Harrison’s house on the Main road. Next the wind razed another belt of trees on tho Waiau road, belonging to Mr. G. R. Honeyfield; they wore snapped off close to the ground. After that the wind tore across to Mr. M. E. Honeyfield’s farm.