WAR CAMARAIERE REVIVED BY FLOODS

Wanganui Chronicle, 20 March 1947, Page 5

WAR CAMARAIERE REVIVED BY FLOODS

RESCUE OF RESIDENTS IN MAROONED HOMES

(Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent) Recd. 9.30 p.m. London, March 19

The camaraderie which marked the days of war in Britain has beep revived by the floods. For miles along the Thames Valley isolated residents of flooded homes are combining with Army and local authorities to rescue children, sick and aged, and to bring supplies to the many hundreds or families who are still living either in the upper storeys or with the flood waters lapping their doorsteps. Below Windsor the spreading flood waters have not risen appreciably for the past 24 hours, but if the threat of further heavy rain is fulfilled hundreds more families will be compelled to evacuate. Villages such as Wraysbury and Datchett are completely cut off, even from telephone communication, and to-day residents who had not been able to leave their 'homes since Saturday were travelling by punts, dinghies and canoes along the flooded lanes to reach Army lorries and “ducks” which are transporting them to the nearest railhead for London. In many places large trees have crashed across the roaas and even boats pould pass it was .iecessary to remove them. Bulldozers wore brought to assist willing gangs ol voluntary workers using and even hatchets. One large elm tree which fell across the main WindsorStaines Road, near Sunnymeads, was completely demolished in two hours and every available chip of it refnoved for firewood.

In hundreds of riverside homes water was pouring through the windows, and insurance companies will be faced with claims for hundreds of thousands of pounds for the destruction of and damage to property.

Despite the chaotic conditions, however, residents with punts ana small boats have been travelling miles across country to obtain bread, milk and other supplies for those who cannot leave their flooded dwellings. .

As a fairly typical experience, your correspondent reached London to-day, first by punt, then by wading a mile and a-half through water at times two feet deep, and finally by Army “Duck” through the deeply-flooded outskirts of Staines to the railway station, where the Southern Railways electric service is still running. Power failed in much of the flooded area on Monday but troops, using an amphibious landing craft, located • 'faulty cable and restored it. In many places riverside homes • which have been built on high foun- ! nations have emerged in better shape than dwellings further from the river. FIFTEEN MILES AN HOUR The bursting of the banks of the •River Colne, a tributary of the 'Thames, near Wraysbury, caused I several very extensive gravel pits in | that neighbourhood, which were al- ' ready full with water, to overflow and flood hundreds of acres of low-lying country around Staines. The Thames near the old Wind-

sor Lock is now flowing at a surface current rate of 15 miles an hour and the whole of the river valley from Windsor to well beyond Staines, and for several miles on either side, is now a sheet ol water, broken only by frees and houses and higner areas oi ground. The flood waters in this area arc in many places at least two feet higher than in any previously recorded flood.