The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-03-14
SOUTH SEAS
HURRICANE
Continued frarn Page II

DAYS from PapeeIe captain Lawless
of the Mariposa and MS officers and all
the passengers arriving from Papeete,
spoke of this hurricane rs a thing that
could not be described though at the
port of Papeete they saw with their
own eyes what wind and sea had
wrought For 200 yards back from the
water s edge along the coast OF TAHITI
the sea had suddenly suvge4 even be
fore the hurricane arose, and nearly
hundred houses and homes were swept
from the earth like abote of sand.
And following this stealthy approach
of the tidal wave was the rearing wind
that struck Tahiti with the force OF
MANY ordinary hurricanes, whipping
the placid sea in twenty minutes into
a maelstrom that must have earned
MANY vessels to their doom, and that
frightened men on shore by its tremen-
dous fury.
WAVES SIXTY FEET HIGH.
Waves estimated by mariners TO be
sixty feet in height leaped with broken
crests from the plain surface of the sea,
as though a volcano had broken out IN
the depths. And with the roaring
storm and seas that tore at the coast
the mountains. leveling homes that the
torrents swept into the sea, almost be-
fore their occupants could rush to
higher ground. From sea and land, like
thanking army that had crept up i'll
the night. the elements seem to have
planned the destruction of Tahiti-this
and the other islands in that part of
the world. But, strange to say, only
a or ha a
Papeete, so far as known, the guardian
of the quarantine station being killed
by the falling walls of the building.
But in a dozen other islands that were
laid waste the loss of life must have
been very large. Not the slightest IN
formation as to the number lost could,
however be obtained when the Mari
posa left Tahiti, on February 10Th.
100000 LOST IN TAHITI.
Tne- property damage in Tahiti is es
timated at 100000, and an equal
amount of damage is believed to have
been sustained on the islands of the
Taumotu group. Seventy buildings
were inundated at Papeete, including
the American consulate and the French
government building. The American
consulate was the oldest building in
Papeete, having been built in 1886. The
Consul, Francis Doty, was absent at
the time, but his mother, with the as
sistance of several missionaries, saved
the archives of the office, though at
great peril to their lives, portions of
the building falling upon them. The
Treasury building of the French Colo
NAL government, and many storehouses,
suffered great damage. Merchants and
their clerks hurried to their stores
when the storm broke, onlv to f"@ +'"t
it was impossible to save anything.
The guardian of the arsenal,
Adams, was in the water for many
hours, and assisted in warning many
persons who might otherwise have been
drowned. The village of Tarona, near
the arsenal, was completely swept away.
1t consisted of mission buildings and
homes of native converts of the re-
organized Latter Day Saints Mission,
formerly under the direction of Captain
Joseph Burton of California. A settle
ment about an eighth of a mile distant,
consisting of dwellings of several hun
bred Cook islanders, British subjects,
was entirely destroyed, but the inhabi-
tants saved themselves by taking to the
hills.