PLIGHT AFTER FLOOD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23615, 27 March 1940, Page 6

PLIGHT AFTER FLOOD

FOUR WEEKS ON HILLTOP WIFE OF MISSIONARY fFROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT] SYDNEY. March <> More than four weeks after being forced by flood waters to abandon the Roper/ River Anglican Mission, North Australia, Mrs S. C Port, the wife of the mission superintendent, and the half-caste aboriginal members of the staff are still camping on the hilltop to which they fled for safety. That/' news reached Darwin by pedal radio from the Roper Valley cattle «tation, where a iiative messenger had arrivec) with a report on the present flood conditions from Constable J. Mahoney, of the Roper River police station'. Constable Mahoney said that he, Mr. Port and the Rev. Phillip Taylor,' who was visiting the Roper River Mission when the floods occurred in the first week of January, went by ' launch from their respective hilltop refuges'' to the abandoned police station Friday. They were gradually making the station house habitable again; but as it was in no fit state for a woman, 'they had left Mrs. Port behind. She and the staff would remain on the hill for the present. There were sufficient stores on hand for everybody for the time being. Constable Mahoney added that he, Mr. Port and Mr. Taylor would proceed to Roper Valley station by horse as soon as the rain had ceased and s the swampy and boggy patches had dried uri sufficiently to become "negotiable. yhe flood appeared to be receding.