1870
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.
Newspaper report on a storm in September 1870.
|
