WIDESPREAD DELUGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 11

WIDESPREAD DELUGE

PHENOMENAL RAINFALL FLOODS IN SYDNEY RESIDENTS' TERRIBLE NIGHT Damage estimated at about £50,000 was done in New South Wales, and particularly in the metropolitan area, by a cyclonic storm on the same morning as that on which the Illiwarra disaster occured. Reports from many parts of the State indicated damage to buildings, crops, roads, railways and fences. Torrential rain fell over a wide area of the State. Waterfall had 24 inches. Randwick, Camden and Wauchope each received more than 10 inches. Oilier falls ranged from three to eight inches. In the city and suburbs, much damage was done by flood waters, which burst stormwater channels, carried away walls of houses, |ind invaded hundreds of homes, sometimes to a height of several feet. Valuable goods were ruined in city shops and warehouses. Coogeo Oval, Randwick Racecourse, and many other areas becamo lakes. Botany Road, from Waterloo to Mascot, was for hours a swirling river. The Nepean River approached flood level. The George's River experienced one of the biggest floods in its history. The Hacking River at National Park reached its greatest height for 20 years. Tributaries of the Gwydir were in high flood at Bingara.

Residents of low-lying parts of Erskineville in South Sydney passed a troubled night. Between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. water from the flooded roadways began to enter the houses. la the small weatherboard cottage occupied by Mr. T. Jones there was 18 inches of water in the bedrooms at 4.30. In the front room, Mr. Jones, who was ill in bed, watched anxiously as the flood rose steadily until it was within an inch of his mattress. There, fortunately, it stopped. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones bad carried in her two youngest children, whose beds, standing lower, had become soaked. They found a dry place of refuge with their father. Woman Awakened by Dog Outside, some of the residents were wading about the flooded street, trying with long iron rods to clear the drains. Local police were quickly on duty, hurrying from house to house to carry the younger children to safety in a loft over a stable. Wading through the water with her baby in her arms, a woman stumbled to her knees almost losing her grasp of the child. She struggled to her feet again, and was able to make her way to a house on dry ground. In one cottage an elderly woman, who was ill, was awakened by her dog, which clambered out ot the water on to her bed. Constables were carrying her to another house when she dropped the key of the front gate, which was locked, in the water. The police had to break the gate open. In Mr. Jones' home, wood from a «eap in the yard floated into the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, in spite of straitened qircumstances and the former s illness, faced the situation cheerfully. It was the laughter of Mrs. Jones thai roused a neighbour who, so far, had slept through the excitement. Coming out to discover the reason for laughter at such an hour, he stepped into the water, and instantly was fully awake. Furniture Carried Away

Flood waters swept into hundreds of homes in Mascot and Botany and in lowlying areas of Alexandria and Waterloo, bursting through doors and carrying away furniture. "From 2.30 a.m. until da\vn residents worked frantically to get their belongings to places of safety. The water scoured deep channels in roads and allotments, smashed fences, and even broke down a bridge over a storm channel in Botany Road, blocking the road for all traffic. Botany Road was for several hours the bed of a roaring stream, the water rising in places to four and five feet. Tho receding water left behind it filth and debris of all descriptions. Many houses were surrounded by miniature lakes, and floors were covered with a layer of mud. Extensive damage was done to shops and their contents.

When the flood subsided many motorcars were found abandoned. Two horses in a stable at Alexandria were drowned. The mortality among fowls and household pets was also heavy. Residents of the Eastern Suburbs suffered severely. Hundreds of homes were flooded, in some cases water reaching as high as the tops of windows. Many had narrow and exciting escapes from drowning, and more than one, unaware of what had happened till the flood was at its height, had to swim to safety. Stormwater drains burst or overflowed, and sections of streets and footpaths were washed away. Spectacle at Coogee Oval

Coogee Oval presented a remarkable spectacle. It became a lake, the level of which reached to the top of the cricket sight screen. Some houses on the southera' side of the oval, were invaded by the rush of waters, and some residents were marooned.

Though the damage at Coogee was probably less than at other parts of the Eastern Suburbs, what happened there was more spectacular. Among the first to realise fully what occurred were the drivers of the early morning trams to the city. They found the tram rails covered by many feet of water; the oval was a muddy sea, overflowing into the surrounding streets, covering the flower beds on the beach side, and almost obliterating a merry-go-round in the amusement park. In one street water was over the fences of the houses, and in many cases above the window sills. A petrol pump in the lowest part of the street, was submerged. A taxicab, left in the street, had vanished. There was no sign of the fences of the oval. Members of the Coogee Sports Club who had stayed late hoping for the rain to cease were hopelessly marooned, and were compelled to wait till morning. Fireball Strikes a House A fireball struck a house at Young, on the south-western slopes, 256 miles from Sydney. The owner and occupier. Mrs. Michael Rhall, and her 12-year-old grandson, Richard Goodman, were alone in the house. The boy was asleep in a room in front of the house when Mrs. Rhall, happening to glance out of tha window, saw what appeared to be a moving ball of fire illuminating the hillside in front of her home. Terrified, she ran into the room and awakened the boy with the object of going to a neighbour's house 100 yards away. Mrs. Rhall had just got the boy outside the room when the fireball struck the wall over the bed on which the boy had been lying, hurling a heap of bricks into the room. There was a loud explosion. A few minutes earlier the Misses Johnson, of Back Creek Road, who were driving into town in a sulky, saw the fireball apparently coming toward them. They immediately jumped out of the vehicle, and ran into a near by house tor safety.