A CHAT WITH THE CITY ENGINEER.
WALLS TO COME DOWN.
(Tuesday’s “N.Z. Times.”)
The City Engineer (Mr W. H. Morton) proceeded to Ngahauranga yesterday afternoon to examine the break in the main. It had occurred at a point about half a mile on the Petone side of Ngahauranga, and consisted of a long crack-like fracture—so long indeed that one side of the crack had “jumped” over the other, leaving an aperture of about an inch, through which the water would be forced in a solid sheet.
The pressure as registered by the “Venturi” meter at Wainui was at the rate of 250,000 gallons per hour. The break occurred between 3.20 a.m. and 3.25 a.m.—before the water was called upon for fire suppression purposes.
Mr Morton cannot account for the break in the main. He mentions that half a pipe, left some time ago, not very far from the scene of the break for repairing purposes, had disappeared when he was at Ngahauranga yesterday. The disappearance of six feet of twenty-four inch pipe needs explaining.
Mr Morton’s attention was called to the astonishing manner in which the jarrah wood blocks had been burned right across the street for a distance of thirty or forty yards in front of Whitcombe and Tombs’ and the Bank of New South Wales.
“I’ve never seen it before,” said the City Engineer. “I’ve seen some big fires in Melbourne, but I’ve never seen them burnt like that—the heat must have been terrific!”
The formal warrant from the Mayor calling the Engineer’s attention to the unsafe condition of the Trocadero walls and ordering him to pull them down has been received by Mr Morton, who will proceed about the work to-day.
He states that Whitcombe and Tombs’ building will also have to come down entirely, and he made an inspection yesterday afternoon to decide the best method of going about it. The tramway wires have been cut on each side of the fire area, and the cars will not travel along the quay for the next day or two on account of the operations necessary in demolishing the standing walls pronounced unsafe.
