HOUSES LOSE ROOFS.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17761, 7 December 1929, Page 5

HOUSES LOSE ROOFS.

WATERSPOUT AND TORNADO.

DAMAGE NEAR GREYMOUTH,

ALARM AMONG RESIDENTS.

Telegraph.—Press Association.) GREYMOUTH, Dec. 6.

Greymouth was last evening visit--ed at about 7.30 o’clock by a tornado .and a waterspout, which came from -the sea directly eastwards, with a •width of from four to five chains. After passing over Blaketown and -the lagoon the cyclone crossed Cow--per, High and Shakespeare Streets, leaving in its wake a trail of damage. «. In Blaketown five houses, together with the outhouses, ' were seriously -damaged, the roofs being blown off. "The wind, on reaching Cowper Street, .“.lifted the roof off a new bungalow and .carried it across the town into the Chills to the eastward.

Four or five other houses between -Cowper Street and the hills had their roofs lifted, while the electric and •telegraphic wires were dislodged along •.the track of the tornado. The whole -electrical current of the town was .interrupted.

There was great alarm among residents within a ceijUain distance of the storm’ B s course, as it was accompanied by loud roaring and flying of iron, timber and other debugs.

The waterspout does not appear to 'have wrought any destruction, but it presented an alarming spectacle as it -was seen rising out of the -ocean.