GREAT STORM ON THE WEST COAST OF LANCASHIRE.
SERIOUS DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY.
BLACKPOOL, Saturday night. - A storm, unparalleled at this season of the year, set in last night
with great fury, the result being lunch destruction of all kinds of property. The tide was at its
height here at about 11-45 last night but two hours before that time the sea, driven inwards by a
most violent gale from the west, ran furiously along the coast, and in many places swept over its
ordinary boundaries. At noon to-day the water washed fiercely over the new promenade, but it was
nothing in comparison with last night's work. For above a mile along the beach, below the new pier,
the scene is one of inundation and wreck.
At the Fox Hall Hotel walls are thrown down, iron railings and seats have been
overturned, and gardens have been flooded. Several houses hereabout have their doors and windows
“barricaded" to keep off the water. Just beyond the hotel named there is a wide open space; in
stormy weather much havoc is generally done here; and the storm just experienced has been no
exception to that rule. In this quarter a long wall has been flattened to the ground by the water;
farther back a small wooden shop, for the sale of sweets, cigars, &c., has been turned
completely wrong side up, with all its contents; whilst beyond this there is a more desolating
scene—a large grain field, with its grain cut and ready for gathering, destroyed. The sheaves of
grain are scattered in all directions, driven against the embankment of the Coast Railway, spread
all along the top of the railway, and floated for more than a mile beyond it.
The new gas-works to the left have been damaged with the water which swept over
the ground here in one overwhelming torrent. A portion of the railway fencing is broken down, and
in two parts the railway embankment has been entirely swept away. The rails fastened together with
screws hang over the breaches with the sleepers fastened to them in a strange skeleton-like
fashion. In other parts where the embankment has not been damaged, the sleepers have been bared and
undermined. Huge pipes, bored through the railway for carrying off flooding water, were torn
asunder and scattered in a field on the .other side of the line.
Many acres of potatoes in this quarter have been swamped. The houses westward,
fronting the sea, have a very desolate and semi-ruined appearance. The water at 12 last night rose
in some of them several feet. Pigs and poultry belonging to some of the tenants have been drowned.
The back yard walls have been blown down and washed down with great force; and the roads are
ploughed up in some places.
Along the entire front of the houses on South Shore below the Manchester Hotel,
nothing but confusion and wreck and ruin appears—gate posts torn down, walls flattened, gardens
filled with stones in some cases and dashed to pieces in others, flags and beautiful little walks
destroyed, iron seats thrown over, balustrades dashed about, and gates floated from their
hinges—these are the sights which meet the eye of the spectator. In some oases the little front
gardens for six or seven lengths together have been riven up by the water, and in nearly all the
wreckage of the flood is painfully conspicuous. Men are busily engaged repairing the railway.
The promenade and its breastwork have stood the storm well. In about a dozen
places stones several yards in extent have been torn up and washed away, but the damage is not
much, and will soon be repaired. The two piers have not been effected in the least by the storm.
Bathing-vans and boats, making zip a curious picture, are planted along the promenade, clear away
from the water —in a few cases they are removed into back streets—so as to avoid the fury of the
waters.
At Lytham, a few miles south-west of Blackpool, the storm last night was very
furious—trees were blown down, boats were dashed about and the Coast Railway was swamped in one
part. Along the coast, above Blackpool, up to Fleetwood the water last night rode over its
boundaries, and created considerable alarm, but it was by no means so terrific in its force as at
Blackpool. In and about Blackpool several building: have been damaged by the wind, and some have
been partially blown down. At eleven o'clock to-night there ii a calm but the shore inhabitants are
on the alert, for the tide will be high again at midnight.
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