Troubles Wide

Bad Weather

Area

The heavy rain which caused the serious floods in Fiji in late March also caused damage in the New Hebrides. The rain depres sion was followed by Hurricane Henrietta, which affected the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island, in addition to interrupting shipping and air lines services in the Western Pacific.

Residents of Santo, New Hebrides, said it was the worst bout of bad weather they had had in many years. Damage was done in Santo town, and there was other damage by winds and big seas around the coast. Ships ran for shelter, and some had to jettison their copra.

Vila got 12 days of continuous rain and winds which closed the airfield intermittently.

New Caledonia received badly needed rains, especially in the Yate hydro electric area, but beaches were battered for several days by 70 mph winds and ships were ordered to leave the wharves and shelter. This caused a big delay in cargo handling.

Norfolk Island got closest to Hen rietta.

For several days the hurricane hung around within a hundred miles of the island, which was battered by huge seas. The Qantas plane was trapped in Auckland for five days, unable to return to the island en route to Sydney.

Henrietta produced winds of 80 to 90 knots within 50 miles of her centre and 50 knots within 250 miles.

Information on the path of Hen rietta by South Pacific weather stations was not accurate enough, ac cording to some people.

Chief officer of a freighter that reached Auckland after a pretty rough passage through the area com plained that Noumea. Brisbane, Syd ney and Auckland all gave out con flicting reports on the exact position of the hurricane.

He suggested that radar-equipped weather planes be used. Some weather men agreed that accurate weather information in the area mostly depended on passing ships and aircraft, but they said special aircraft or weather ships would be too expen sive to maintain.

The Sunday afternoon drive to see the floodwaters from Suva resulted in amateur photographers capturing scenes like this.