SYDNEY'S HURRICANE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23691, 24 December 1938, Page 7

SYDNEY'S HURRICANE

| WORST WIND ON RECORD | VAST TRAIL OF RUIN . | v SYDNEY, Dec. .16. j Ravaged for eight hours last Saturday by a fiery blast from the \jrest, swelling to hurricane force, 75 qftiles an hour, Sydney and other parts of the coastal belt east of the Oreat Dividing Range were left with a trail of ruin, damage being estimated at £600,000. It was the worst wind storm Sydney had experienced. •i Like an outrushfrom a blast furnace, the gale lashed and tore its ■vfray, the temperature bounding to a maximum of 98.3 ; degrees. It would Have gone higher but for the thick dust clouds which tampered the sun's rays. More than 40 persons in Sydney were felled by flying timber, sheets .0$ iron, bricks, and tree branches, a youth being fatally injured. Several persons were in streets by the terrific punch of the hurricane. Broken overhead wires halted trams and electric trains. . Bush fires swept the outer suburbs and country near Sydney, a ring of flames extending for 100 miles and more.' More than 30 homes were destroyed. . -■.

litis estimated that• 1,000,000 tons cjE dust, swept up in the path of the hurricane from the psr<j:he;d areas of Central Australia; were carried upward to a height of six miles, creating an immense pall whic,h partly obscured the sun. Ships encountered this d,ust far out in the Tasnian. G|eat destruction was brought b'y>tbe gale in the orchard 1 districts, where many farmers iface rfiin. Dsimage estimated at m'bre' than £120,000 was caused to summer fruit crops and citrus trees. A carpet of nearly-ripe fruit covered every orchard—a year's work destroyed in a few hours. Entire crops of tomatoes, peas, beans,, melons, and pumpkins were damaged, or destroyed. N6t-. : ?mce the Easter cyclone of raged for eight days and caus'e<H? deaths, have rougher seas 'beeri.vswi.uv the harbour than were kicked, Up By .Saturdav's gale. It down on fleets of small craffafripping away moorings and mnglflgrrtahy yachts and motor boats ashore,' Residents on the southern wateicilontp which caught the full the storm as the worst,fbjji3o years. Alice,':' a 45ft schooner-yacht, owned; % Mr J. Icher, formerly a French"naval officer, dragged her moorings and was cast on the rocks at the foot of a Rose Bay garden.. The Alice, which cost Mr Icher £3OOO, was badly damaged. She battered •gi'eat holes in her side as she crashed against the rocks. At Rose Bay, too, a 30-foot motor launch was dashed against a stone retaining wall at the rear of a block of flats, and wrecked. Many other launches and yachts were blown on to harbour beaches and rocks and variously damaged, or sank at their moorings

The hurricane, which was described by the State meteorologist (Mr D. J. Mares);/as the. most'severe/ evefr experienced-- in Sydney,,.was, from a metedroiogjcal point'of view. a phenomenon; lUsually ;. strong winds are caused..;'By?a localised depression of cyciohio '.character, the track of which can be clearly traced. but Saturday's gale was causea by an low pressure, and the fierce winds were general over a wide area, including practically the whole of New South Wales and parts of neighbouring'States. Sydney was located,in one of the worst sections, and received the full force of the blow. At the weather Bureau, the wind-recording instruments showed the velocity of the strongest squall to be slightly more than the hurricane figure of 75 mile? an hour, but it exceeded 80 miles in some suburbs and also at tho South Head signal station. The Sydney Fire Brigade received 400 calls ...to fires from,B-a,m till shortly before, midnight on- Saturday and 95 calls on Sunday. Every one of the 76 stations in the metropolitan area was called out on Saturday, 61 of them being engaged simultaneously. The splendid work done by firemen, police and civilian volunteers undoubtedly saved hundreds of homes and property worth many.hundreds of thousands of pounds They checked the flames, at many places after fences had been destroyed and the walls pf buildings were being scorched.

Emergency staffs worked continuously at full pressure throughout/Saturday night and Sunday cutting away and repairing electricity, telegraph and telephone lines which had been broken by uotorn tree? and flying branches, roofs and timbers. In all. 133 trunk telephone services were thrown out of action.