ROAD COMMUNICATIONS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17498, 19 June 1931, Page 6

ROAD COMMUNICATIONS

BLOCKED NORTH & SOUTH NIGHT MAIL HELD UP I ROAD EB-OPESEI) TO-DAY Slips on the south road and flooded fords on the northern highway combined to isolate Poverty Bay temporarily through yesterday and to-day, passengers and mails ordinarily carried by road services being held up for a tune. Advice was received this afternoon tlmt the road had been re-opeued and the cars were going through as usual. -On the north route the flooded streams which yesterday necessitated the employment of a special train for the transport of the viceregal party on its way to Gisborne were still unfordable this morning. though there were signs that the peak of the flooding had passed, and that in a few hours ears would he able to use the route without serious difficulty. The service companies did not dispatch their cars for the north this morning, hut it was expected that by noon the flood would have subsided sufficiently to permit the resumption of the services.

THE DELAY TO TIIF MAILS The delay to the mails was one of the consequences of the hold-up on the south road. The mails are carried by the night service, the motor-lorries passing at- Wairoa in the ordinary course, but not long after the Gisborne truck bad departed yesterday, advice was received of the blocking of Hie road at the D'evil s Elbow by a slip, the dimensions of which were unknown. The lorry which left Napier shortly after the arrival of the express had encountered the blockage, and in view of the heavy rain and the consequent intensifying of the risk el trying to proceed, the truck was turned hack to Napier. The south-hound lorry from Gisborne was stopped at Wairoa, and remained there until this morning, when it proceeded in the hope that an exchange of mails could be made at the site of the slip, in the event of the road being still blocked.

'I lie Napier postal officials intimated to iMr. I). Black, chief postmaster in Gisborne, that the Public Works Department would take in band Hie clearing of the road this morning, and that cars should be able to pass through a lew hours after daylight.

Service ears which left Napier an hour or two before the mail truck yesterday were able to go through to Wairoa and Gisborne with some little difficulty, small slips having occurred at more than one point. Apparently it was not until the early evening that the slip at the Devil’s Elbow came down to block the road completely for Hie time being. Later advice received by the chief postmaster indicated that the mails were transferred across the slip at the Devil’s Elbow this morning and the mail truck was due to reach Wairoa- at 2 p-.m. Two further cracks have, developed in tbo new Waipukurau resevoir as (be result of a recent earthquake. Repairs are estimated to cost C2CO.

'I be Coast road was reported to be barely passable at the Makarori deviation (bis morning, the contractor having a team of horses available to give assist anco to oars. Conditions at that point had not altered materially since yesterday, when the morning car from the Coast traversed the section.