LIGHTNING’S EFFECT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 11

LIGHTNING’S EFFECT

STRUCK NINE HOUSES FAMILIES HOMELESS During a violent thunderstorm at Sheffield lightning struck nine houses within a radius of a few hundred yards. Two houses were completely wrecked, and others were severely damaged. Several families were made homeless. The roadway was littered with fallen masonry, broken furniture, chimney pots and shattered windowpanes, and at a house in Sheaf Street the whole of the chimney stack fell through the roof into a bedroom and then into the living room. A house in Sheaf Gardens was also rendered uninhabitable . The chimney fell into the bedroom and the shock brought down every ceiling in the house with the exception of that in the kitchen, where the tenant and his daughter were seated. They were uninjured. In another house the ceiling fell on a railwayman tenant, who was in bed. Two families are homeless as a result of the storm.