UNABATED STORMS

Northern Advocate, 18 August 1931, Page 5

UNABATED STORMS

ENGLISH CHANNEL SWEPT HAILSTONES LIKE GOLF BALLS COLONEL HUDSON DROWNED. (United Press Association-~-By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received 9 a.m.)

LONDON, August 17,

The widespread hailstorms and torrential rains continue. The gale precluded practice by pilots for the Sellnelder Cup race. Hailstones as large as golf balls pierced motor hoods, killed poultry and smashed windows in East Anglia. The storms did enormous damage to crops throughout the country.

It was the 27th wet week-end in 1931.

The crew of the yacht Maitenes 11, which was competing in the Fastnet Cup race from Cowes to Plymouth, abandoned the vessel after Colonel Hudson had been washed overboard and drowned. A steam trawler picked up the survivors. It is believed that the Dorade, which recently won the trans-Atlantic yacht race, won the Fastnet Cup, but many of the competitors are hove-to, waiting for a. lull in the storm.

ROUGHEST FOB YEARS. BOATING CALAMITIES. VILLAGE ISOLATED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, August 17. Stormy weather was again experienced along the south coast today, with high winds and tire roughest sumtnei seas for many years. It is reported that three lives were lost in boating accidents off the Isle of Wight. A bungalow village, which has grown up on the shingle beach near Winchelsea, the old ‘Cinque port, has been cut off by the waves, which threaten to undermine the foundations of the buildings.

TRAIL OP DEVASTATION. MORE DE ATHS'RECORDED, SEVERAL PERSONS DROWNED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY, August 17.

A frail ol death and damage was left by the storm, which was the worst August gale in 20 years. Seven campers on thq Isle of Wight returning t,o Portsmouth) tossed up for five places in a rowing boat, which was afterwards overwhelmed in the heavy, seas. Three were drowned.

A child was swept off the Margate beach by a huge wave. Henry. Robliison and Henry Aldridge, the latter a well-known and popular labour worker, and a close friend of Mr George Lansbury, Commissioner of Works, gallantly ruslie3 in to save the child, but both wsre drowned.

Rising without warning after torrential rain, the Whitadder Stream .swept over a dam near Hutton, Berwickshire, on which eight labourers were working. Four of them, all Irishmen, including two brothers, were carried off and drowned.

A father and his twin daughters were taking refuge in the ancient Finsthwaite Tower, when it was struck by lightning. One daughter was killed and the others were knocked insensible. A nurse and a 14-year-old boy were drowned in the swollen stream at Haddington, where 40 families are homeless owing to flood.

The yachts are still limping in from the Fastnet race. Dorade was declared the winner.