Five Lives Rescued in the Floods.

Unusual Service by A VERY unusual Life-boat Service was carried out on 4th September last, when the No. 2 Life-boat at Whitby, a 34-feet Pulling and Sailing Life-boat, was called out to the rescue of five people trapped in their houses and in danger owing to the overflowing of the River Esk.

Serious floods occurred in Eskdale in July of 1930. They came at night and caused loss of life and widespread damage. This year's floods became dangerous during the day, so that there was longer warning and most of those likely to be in danger were able to get to safety.

There was heavy rain on the Wednesday and Thursday, and much flood water came down Eskdale from the hills. Rain fell in torrents throughout the Friday, 4th September, and the floods rose rapidly. During the morning the river was coming down to Whitby like a mill-race. It brought down whole trees. Many hundreds of boats were in danger, and two were swept away from their moorings and lost.

The water continued to rise, and, as in the previous year, the chief danger was at Euswarp, one and a half miles the Whitby Life-boat.

up the valley from Whitby. The road and railway bridge were impassable by 3.30 in the afternoon. An hour and a half later the road to Sleights was 8 feet under water, and the position of the inhabitants of two cottages was so serious that the Chief Officer of Coastguard at Whitby, who was at Euswarp, telephoned to Whitby and asked for the services of one of the Life-boats. In the floods of last year Life-boatmen had taken a fishing boat by road to Euswarp, but this year it was felt that no boat but the Life-boat would be of use. The current was estimated to be running at eight knots.

The 34-feet No. 2 Life-boat was got out at 5.40. She was dragged the mile and a half to Euswarp by road, seventy people giving their help. An hour after leaving Whitby she was launched on the flooded road at the riverside, just below the church. The current was so strong that it was impossible for her Crew to row her against it, but with the Crew at tie oars and helpers bearing on a rope, she was, with great difficulty, got half a mile upstream.

At one point she grounded on the road, and had to be dragged some way before she would refloat. Then she was rowed out into mid-stream, anchored, and dropped down to a house, where two women, one of them about ninety years old and bed-ridden, were marooned in the upper story with 10 feet of raging water round them.

Owing to a submerged stone wall, it was impossible for the Life-boat to get alongside the house by about four feet, but fortunately a small boat, with three Whitby fishermen on board, had, half an hour before, been veered down the river by a rope from the shore.

These men were cheering the women by telling them that the Life-boat was on the way. Their boat was useless to bring the women ashore, but it was used as a bridge, and the women were carried across it into the Life-boat.

The three fishermen then got on board her ; their boat was taken in tow, and the Life-boat was hauled upstream again. During this operation she got athwart a telegraph pole; the small boat was swamped, and the Life-boat had to leave her cable and anchor in the river.

The Life-boat then dropped down the river to the Mill House and rescued two more women and a man from a bedroom window. Here, again, she could not get alongside the house, but a ladder was placed from the boat to the window, and the three people crawled across it.

The five rescued people were then landed in a garden, and the Life-boat fastened up at the road-side. It was now dark, for the work of rescue had taken over two hours. It had been carried out under great difficulties— the strong current, floating trees and other obstacles, and submerged walls, fences, and hedges. The Life-boat was lucky to have passed through these unaccustomed dangers with no more damage than two small rents in the outside planking on the starboard bow.

One of the Crew, however, was injured, being struck and knocked over by the hauling rope.

The usual service rewards were made to the Crew and Helpers; and weekly compensation to the injured man during the time that he was incapacitated. Letters of appreciation were sent to Captain R. W. Milburn, the Chairman, Captain M. Mothersdale, member of the Committee, and Mr. J. W. Foster, the Secretary of the Branch, who were present the whole time, directing operations from the land, and to Captain W. W. Milburn, another member of the Committee, who was on board the Life-boat.