NDESTRUCTIBLE PORT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21448, 12 September 1939, Page 2

NDESTRUCTIBLE PORT

PROTECTING LONDON London is now an indestructible I port, thanks to the scheme of control and protection evolved by the Port of London Authority, it is claimed by Mr W. L. Wrightson. chairman of the Authority’s river committee. “We are prepared,” he says, “to carry on whatever may happen.” The Authority has allocated the sum of £250,000 for air raid protection to men working the docks system. All vital points have been protected and over three and a-half miles of trenches are available for refuge from blast and splinters. Over 30,000 workers arc being .safeguarded in the P.L.A.’s own dock area, while owners of wharves and warehouses for 30 or 40 miles on each bank of the Thames have arranged for similar protection for their staffs. Moorings have been placed for about 78 ships in the lower reaches of the Thames. The small craft organisations, with some 10,000 barges and tugs capable of handling 1,000,000 tons of cargo, have been organised into a pool, and .should any one dock system be put out of action, all these resources would be at the service of the port. Arrangements have also been made for evacuating essential foodstuffs and dangerous goods.