Weather: Auckland, Tauranga lashed by heavy rain – slips, flooding and widespread damage to homes; Waitomo declares state of emergency

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins spoke to the media after a helicopter fly-over to survey the damage from last night’s flooding. Video / NZ Herald / Pool Footage

A home has collapsed in Tauranga and residents have been evacuated, while Waitomo has declared a state of emergency as stormy weather and heavy rain that lashed Auckland moves down the country. Bay of Plenty, Coromandel and parts of Waikato have been hit hard by stormy weather overnight and more bad weather is forecast to hit the Auckland region today, offering no respite to residents still recovering from record rainfall and heavy flooding that left up to four people dead.

Emergency services have been at the scene of the destroyed home on Egret Ave in the Tauranga suburb of Maungatapu overnight. “The entire end of that street was covered by a landslide,” a witness told the Herald early on Sunday morning. “The house was pretty much in the middle of the road. There was probably about 10-plus police cars, four fire trucks, three ambulances and multiple people on the street.”

They said the road was closed and homes were being evacuated.

Fire and Emergency shift manager Paul Redden said when they received the call there were still people inside one of the affected properties.

Two other houses had been affected, Redden said. “That’s the information that I have and we still have a crew in attendance that will be liaising with council to assess the property. I am aware at the time of the call there were still people in one of the houses. There were still occupants inside but upon our arrival… they were instructed to get out of the house immediately, which they did do upon our arrival.”

Initially, four trucks with 16 crew were sent to the scene.

Meanwhile, three people have died and one is missing after raging floodwaters and slips caused by an unprecedented deluge of rain across Auckland – easily the city’s wettest day on record. A state of emergency remains in place across the region.

A state of emergency was also declared for the Waitomo District on Saturday night by Mayor John Roberston. The declaration took effect at 7.05pm and expires in seven days.

Robertson said the district had experienced widespread flooding and heavy rain, with reports of flooding, slips and inundation. Residents currently impacted by flooding are also being evacuated.

“The situation in Waitomo is serious, and with nightfall upon us and more rain expected, it’s important we are prepared and have the right controls in place to provide help and support, including further evacuations.”

In Auckland, there is widespread damage to homes, with many residents evacuated. Several homes in Hillsborough, Massey, Stanley Pt and Northcote Pt have been left teetering on the top of cliff-faces, following dramatic landslides

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STORY CONTINUES:

As dawn breaks over Auckland this morning, residents are praying for an end to the at-times biblical deluges delivering devastating floods that have killed at least three people and displaced many more.

They are unlikely to get their wish.

MetService meteorologist Angus Hines said the record-breaking rain band that moved away from the city for a time yesterday will return today, likely bringing more heavy showers later in the day. More rain is predicted through to the end of the week.

While they won’t reach the levels of the downpours experienced during an unprecedented four hours on Friday evening, the amount of water lingering on the ground in Auckland could mean yet more flooding for the beleaguered city.

Auckland’s weather stations recorded staggering levels of rainfall during the worst of the storm.

The highest level was recorded at Albert Park, with 299.5mm in the 40 hours to 4pm yesterday, Hines said.

Over the same period, 276.8mm fell at Auckland Airport. That is the highest level since the airport weather station began collecting data in 1962, beating its own

previous record by 50 per cent.

The torrential rains reached their peak in a hellish period from 5pm to 9pm Friday, when 180mm fell. Hines said that was equivalent to three Januaries of rain in four hours.

Thousands of insurance claims have already been lodged amid widespread damage across the supercity.

The floods also conspired to ruin the Auckland Anniversary weekend plans of many, closing the airport and cancelling events including the much-anticipated Laneway Festival at Western Springs on Monday.

The Gardens Music Festival, already moved from Victoria Park to the Auckland Domain, is still planned to go ahead today, but indoors at Spark Arena. Both Friday and Saturday night’s Elton John concerts were canned.

Tales of heroism and tragedy have emerged from the disaster, with emergency services and civilians swimming through perilous and filthy waters over head height to effect rescues.

Among the fortunate survivors was a 3-year-old boy rescued by lifeguards as he slept on a couch that was floating inside a home in Kumeū. On Friday evening police, fire crews and civilians waded through deep waters to rescue 30 residents from a swamped Pukekohe rest home.

There has been criticism of the delay in mayor Wayne Brown announcing a state of emergency on Friday night, along with sluggish communications from officials and an absence of emergency warning text messages.

Auckland’s Domain became a shallow lake on Saturday with residents watching in amazement as a kitesurfer sped across the fields, replacing the usual cricket games.

In nearby Shore Rd, Remuera, tragedy struck as a man was eventually found dead after a landslide during the worst of the rain that washed away his home.

The Herald understands the dead man’s son, who was also in the house at the time, managed to escape despite being initially trapped by one of his legs.

The son, who was near the front door when the landslip occurred, then tried in vain to find his father.

Up to four people have died – three deaths have been confirmed and one person is unaccounted for, police say. One man was found dead in a flooded culvert in Wairau Valley about 7.30pm Friday and another man was found dead in a flooded carpark on Link Drive, also in Wairau Valley, about 12.30am Saturday.

Auckland Emergency Management duty controller Andrew Clark said yesterday fire crews and police responded to more than 2000 calls, including many people trapped in homes and cars by the floodwaters.

About 70 displaced people had visited Civil Defence Centres since they opened on Friday.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins flew to Auckland’s Whenuapai air base aboard an Air Force Hercules. He met affected families and emergency services in West Auckland together with Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.

Brown inspected flood damage from a chartered helicopter as Hipkins did the same from an Air Force chopper.

Hipkins said Civil Defence payments had been activated and accommodation was available for displaced people.

“The levels of devastation in some areas is considerable,” Hipkins said.

He assured Aucklanders central Government would be providing more support in the coming days and told residents to expect more bad weather.

Hipkins thanked emergency service workers and all those involved in the response to the flooding.

“I want to acknowledge the way Aucklanders have come together to support each other.”

Mayor Brown said Friday was a tough night for the whole city, and its leadership.

He defended the speed of the emergency response and the declaration of a state of emergency late on Friday.

“The response was way quicker than people acknowledge.”

He claimed “thousands” of people were already “out there” before they declared an emergency

On Saturday he visited the emergency management centre, and said he was delighted to see things were getting better.

“There are a lot of messages to be learned about how we build and look after our environment.”

He said some of the houses should not have been built where they were.

Hipkins said we would not get into “second guessing” decisions surrounding when the state of emergency was called.

McAnulty said the Government was to provide initial funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland.

“Rest assured that there will be additional funding allocated once we have a better assessment of the full extent of the damage and its cost,” McAnulty said.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon said he would have liked to have seen a state of emergency declared sooner and has called for a formal review of the flood response.

He would not be drawn on his views on how Brown or Hipkins had responded to the disaster.

“I’ve had Aucklanders express to me the frustration about a lack of communications. But I want to be really careful about us just jumping to conclusions… especially about why it wasn’t as fast as it could have been.”

Luxon said the event should be a message to anyone not taking climate change seriously.

“Climate change is real. We have seen increasingly extreme weather events, we can point to the facts and the data. And it’s important that as we think about the future that we actually learn to adapt to it. And we actually make sure we’ve got the infrastructure support.”

The insurance claims have continued to pour in. AMI, State and NZI Insurance were yesterday morning expecting to have received more than 1000 damage claims related to homes, businesses and flooded vehicles. Vero said it had more than 300 claims for flood and storm damage while AA Insurance had more than 110.

At press time, Auckland Airport said there would be no international passenger departures until 5am Sunday, and no international arrivals until 7am.