STORM HAVOC IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

“WORST WITHIN MEMORY.”

HAILSTONES SIX INCHES DEEP.

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. AYLESBURY, WEDNESDAY.

Aylesbury was the centre yesterday afternoon of one of the worst storms that have ever visited Buckinghamshire. Thunder and lightning were accompanied by a torrential downpour, which flooded the main roads and much of the town, doing tremendous damage to houses, crops, and cattle. At Aylesbury Cattle market to-day farmers from the surrounding districts had extraordinary stories to tell, and all are agreed – including a Waddesdon man 83 years of age – that in violence it transcended any storm that they remembered.

There were three storms really – at four o’clock, at 5.15, and at eight o’clock – the second being the most severe. It lasted for about forty-five minutes, and its severity can be gauged by the fact that the rain measurement at the Town Hall, in the centre of the town, registered a little under one inch. Outside the town, the surrounding villages were undoubtedly subjected to heavier falls, but records were not taken. There people were driven by the rushing waters to their upstairs rooms, where they were imprisoned for hours with the dread of the waters rising further, and knowing that there was little hope of rescue, for the flood was too deep for any vehicle to approach and no boats were available.

After the storm’s final effort, however, had spent itself shortly after eight o’clock, the waters began to subside, but ground floors in parts of the town and in many of the villages were unapproachable until this afternoon, when pathetic scenes were witnessed as the occupants surveyed their furniture and household goods, damaged in some instances irretrievably, and the several inches of mud sediment left on the floors. Four pumping stations of the Aylesbury Borough Council are flooded, the sports ground is a lake, a shallow stream – where no stream existed before – flows through the Great Central and Metropolitan Railways station, numbers of families can only leave their homes by wading, meadows are under water, sheep and poultry have been destroyed, orchards – so full of promise – have been stripped by hail, and crops generally have sustained severe damage. Such is the net result of the visitation. Men and cattle alike were struck by lightning, but fortunately no human life was lost.

FLOODING IN AYLESBURY.

Aylesbury town is situated in a large “basin” in the Chilterns, which appears to have held the storm, for it was confined to an area the diameter of which would be about twenty miles. The town itself suffered a good deal, and the flooding of four pumping stations which exist for sewage pumping has caused further embarrassment, but the surveyor’s department states there is no danger from a sanitary point of view. Water flows along the permanent way of the London and North-eastern Railway (Great Central section), and several houses in the vicinity can only be reached by wading. Park-street and Highbridge-passage, in the lower part of the town, near the Grand Junction Canal, are surrounded by water. This area was particularly unfortunate, although it suffered rather from the after-effects than from the actual storm. A resident in this neighbourhood said:

We experienced the full severity of the storm, which appeared to be a gathering of three distinct disturbances, which met at about a quarter-past five and descended upon us. We seemed to be actually in the heart of the storm, blinding lightning flashing around us, with deafening thunder. Then came the cloudburst and hailstones as large as the glass marbles in mineral water bottles. Everyone took shelter, and the hail continued until it lay in some places six to nine inches deep. I assure you this is not exaggeration. The stones choked drains and watercourses, and prevented the water getting away, but, even then, the Park-street area was not flooded, the canal and a stream which runs alongside it carrying off the water sufficiently to prevent flooding. It cleared up about six o’clock.

At about one o’clock this morning we were awakened by the sound of rushing water. It was not raining. Then, when I looked from the window, I saw men and women rushing about in night attire, and I went downstairs, but I could not get out, as the ground floor was flooded. After a time I waded across the kitchen and opened the back door, then the front door, and the water rushed right through the house, from back to front. For twelve hours the water continued to rush through the house in this way, and my neighbours had similar experiences. What had happened was that the canal had overflowed. The damage is very severe, and I hope something will be done in the nature of a fund to relieve the distress.

HEAT WAVE

The hottest weather of the year so far was experienced in London yesterday. By 9 a.m. the thermometer recorded 66 degrees in the shade – this year’s record at that hour – and by noon it had risen to 73 degrees. It was then 107 degrees in the sun. Apparently the heat is to continue for a little, for to-day’s forecast speaks of “very warm” weather with thunder locally.