TREMENDOUS GALE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3498, 28 May 1920, Page 5

TREMENDOUS GALE.

CHRISTCHURCH ALARMING

' ' EXPERIENCE_ ‘ MUCH DAMAGE DONE. ' CHRISTCHURCH, May 27. A tremendous south-westerly gale swept over, the city in the early hours of this morning, damaging trees, breaking overhead wires and disturbing whole households by its extraordinary Violence. A policeman on early duty says the gale reminded him of the exgplosion of a big dump in France. Very iheavy gusas tore along the streets at tremendous speed, and to walk against them was.all but impossible. At 2.15 am. a break was discovered in the transmission lines‘ of the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric system, and ‘fit was 6 am. before repairs were effected and current restored. Ml‘ Sky, of the Government Observatory, states that during the storm the barometer rose one-tenth -of an‘ inch in a few minutes and the thermometer seven degrees in three or four minutes. He believes the gale had a record velocity for these parts_ ; TUTANEKAI STRUCK BY GALE. 4| "“—"" I CHRISTCHURCH, May 27. I The Government steamer Tutanekai, 1 which left Wellington at 2- pm. yes. fterday for Lyttelton in order to bunker on her way to Oamaru, where she ‘is to pick up thirty hospital Datients for Nelson, struck the gale at 1.15 am, -'Whe' opposite Conway river the ves- i sel ahit «by a westerly gale of hur- ! tricane orce, which later suddenly‘ weered to southerly again hitting the! fvessel severely. Captain post stated that it was the severest Weather he had experienced on the New Zealand coast. "1 have‘ done a lot of travelling around the‘ South Sea‘ Islands_ and "Indian Ocean, but never before experienced anything like it My chief officer, who has travelled the coast for years, says the same.”-