ROUGH WEATHER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2139, 23 July 1907, Page 2

ROUGH WEATHER.

Press Association. WESTPORT, last night. A heavy gale on Saturday did damage throughout the district. Tho Trotting Club’s grandstand was unroofed. Bush fires are raging at fceddonville. The Masonic Hall caught, but was extinguished. OAMARU, last night. The north-east galo which set m oar lv on Sunday morning is still blowing, and a very heavy sea is running. The Rakaia, expected early this morning, had not put in an appearance at midday, and cannot now entei the port till midnight.

TE AROHA, July 22. A gale was raging on Saturday night and on Sunday lences and sheds wore down everywhere. A young man named George Hickey, Bleeping in a cottage on a rise whicli was blown away and smashed to pieces, WU(S badly bruised but no bones were broken. Messrs. Johnston and Gavillin’s shed containing 6 buggies v as destroyed and tho contents damaged. The river is high and railway communication is interrujited. At I’aeioa ihere is a washout causing about LSOO worth of damage. AUCKLAND, July 22 The Takapuna due at (njbunga from” New Plymouth yesterlay noming did not arrive until seven to-day. She left New Plymouth at nine on | Saturday night. Heavy weather and ,-og obscured the land which she picked up on Sunday afternoon. Tho \lalluka\l bar was crossed at four o’clock and tlie steamer anchored at tho Heads till this morning owing to the thick weather. The Collector of Customs has been notified by the Master of the s.s. Kamau that the beaoon on Maori Rock, North Channel, Kawau, has been disloged. DAMAGE TO THE AUCKLAND WHARF. The gale on Sunday caused extensive damage to portions of the jiew ferro concrete railway wharf. The part affected most is the training wall sheathed piles which extend the whole length of the wharf for tho purpose of turning the tide and making still water inside. About a dozen baj’s in the middle of the wall have been torn out almost completely, a few isolated piles being visible here and there with jagged ends of the steel reinforcement sticking out of the top. A heavy top girder has also gone in these bays with the exception of some small portions hanging to the tops of isolated piles. The steel bars forming reinforcement are stretching bent and stripped of concrete across the intervening space. Passing furi ther out towards the end of the wharf the wall still stands, .though daylight can be seen glimmering between the piles in several places. Coming to tlie place where work is 1 now progressing the ravages of the storm are once more apparent. At tlie north-eastern corner a clump of piles has been driven and these have been forced in various ways. Other damage is reported. A CRY IN THE NIGHT.

One of the . crew of the sunken cutter, Flora, was heard crying out in the water off North Heah for assistance shortly after the cutter foundered on Saturday. The fishing boat Kestrel was sailing up from Mercury Bay, and when off North Head at 3.30 one of the crew named Morrison heard someone calling out in the water. He roused his mate, Norman, and the boat was put up into the wind. Just before that- Morri—floating by evidently, hanging on to some floating object. The man called out seven or eight times, but was evidently nearly exhausted. The Kestre'l searched for over an hour, but no sign of the man was seen again. The spot where he was passed by the. Kestrel was about 60 yards from the shore.