WATER SUBSIDING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 8

WATER SUBSIDING.

Peak of Waimakariri Flood Passed. The Waimakariri River, which was running seven and a half feet above normal at the main traffic bridge at ten o’clock last night, had fallen two feet at 10.45 this morning, and was subsiding rapidly. With the rise in the level of the river yesterday, the highest for twelve months, water was flowing through Wright’s cut. The stop banks and other protective works stood up to the pressure in reassuring fashion and no damage was reported. Yesterday stock was removed as a precaution from the land which it was considered might be covered by flood waters. Yesterday afternoon, though the flood had not reached its peak, there was a substantial flow in the river and was rushing down the pilot channels which run through Wright’s cut. With the drag-line excavator, the pilot channels will be considerably enlarged to take a good deal more of the water that surges round Coutts Island to the main traffic bridge. Erosion Continues. The erosion of the south bank of the river at the lower end of Coutts Island adjacent to Wright’s cut continues, though the action now is not so rapid as was the case recently. Speaking of the position, a trust official declared that the worst of the erosion had been experienced and there were signs of shingle piling up at the foot of the bank affected. Where land had been dropping into the water it seemed that the soil was of a nonresisting sandy nature, while a little further downstream, where the land was more solid, there had been little erosion. It was his view that many people were taking an unnecessarily panicky ” View of the situation, taking into account the fact that the land that had been eroded was well within the huge stop banks that had been built up and down Coutts Island. The erosion was an action that was normally to be expected. Canon 11. O. T. Ilanbv, who drove over the Waimakariri bridge last evening, said that he had never seen the water so near the decking. Other motorists felt slight alarm, as the flood roared away so close to the decking.