Wellington floods: The stories of the people caught up in the disaster

Source: Radio New Zealand

Many parts of Wellington have started the week under water, after heavy rain hit the North Island for the second consecutive weekend.

The capital’s southern suburbs have been were hit the hardest by the storm on Monday.

Here are their stories:

Mount Cook

A woman living in Wright Street, in the suburb of Mount Cook, saw half a dozen cars floating when she looked outside her window early on Monday.

Jane Loughnan said she woke up around 4.30am and saw “water everywhere”.

“There was water down the bottom of my path, which has never happened before.

“We’re really close to Prince of Wales Park, and a lot of debris had come down through the Pāpāwai Stream, and flooded sort of the lower end of our street.”

Loughnan said there was mud everywhere, and tow trucks had arrived – “trying to work out how they’re going to tow the cars away”.

She said all of her neighbours had been out, trying to move some of the mud “so we can actually sort of have half a foot path that people can get through.”

“So, yeah, just a little bit of a mess.”

Loughnan said her house was okay, but the house across the street and another on the corner had water come up to their front door.

She thought there had been “a little bit more damage” up on Salisbury Terrace but had not made it up that far yet.

She said all her neighbours were out with “hoses, and brooms, and shovels, and everything.”

“Lots of photos, and talking, and scratching of heads.”

Another local went to bed as normal on Sunday but got a rude awakening around 4am.

Mik Breitenbach told Midday Report she woke up to “gurgling sounds” inside her bedroom.

“As soon as I sat up and put my feet on the ground, I stepped into about maybe 10 centimetres of water.

“I could see that the water was rising more.”

Breitenbach said it was then that herself and her three flatmates realised what was happening.

“We also realised that the gurgling sound was water seeping up through our floorboards into the house.”

Breitenbach said it was “non-stop”.

She was fortunate that herself and her three flatmates had prepared a go bag for Cyclone Vaianu earlier in April.

Breitenbach said the four had headed out the back of the house, because there was about a metre of water outside the front, with their arms interlocked as “was just gushing past us”.

“It was strong. I could feel it. I feel like if one of us had fallen we would all probably go down.”

Breitenbach said cars that were parallel parked the night before were floating in the middle of the road.

She said her partner lived nearby, so the four were able to stay at her house.

“Went to her house, knocked on the door, and they let us in.

“Their house is very warm and dry, thankfully.”

Breitenbach said the four had returned to their house once the rain had stopped, but found it inundated with mud and silt.

While she was afraid, Breitenbach said she was forced to act.

“Because, obviously, you can’t stay there, but at the same time I kind of went blank, because I couldn’t think about it too much, because I didn’t want to get really nervous and kind of panic, and so, yeah, it was definitely scary, but you kind of just got to get on with it and get to safety.”

Breitenbach said she had made a call to her insurance company, as well as her landlord and property manager.

“We’re waiting to hear back about what our accommodation might be, because it seems like the house would be out of action for a while.

“But we have wonderful friends, who have offered to put us up, and to give supplies, and food, and to take care of us.

“So yeah, we’re just taking it as it comes, really.”

Brooklyn

CJ Kochar woke up to what he said was his “worst nightmare” on Monday, as a landslide caused the wall of his bedroom in Brooklyn to cave in.

Kochar said he heard a loud noise around 5am, before the roof fell in and cracks appeared in the wall, which later broke.

He said it happened on the backside of the house, on Ōwhiro Road, so the front was unaffected.

Kochar said his landlord had arrived and was helping him to sort alternative accommodation.

He said he was fortunate that he had contents insurance, while his landlord had house insurance.

Kochar said the rain in Wellington had slowed down “a little bit”, but the entire street was flooded.

Another Brooklyn resident told RNZ his neighbour had to spend the rest of the night in his lounge after a landslide.

Carlton Ruffell said the thunderstorm woke his family up around 4am.

“I went to the kitchen because we have some work going on the creek, would you believe, some flood protection being put in, and the worksite was becoming inundated – the road was just flowing like a river, and then over, about the next 20 minutes, the water got higher and higher until it covered a digger that was sitting in the creek,” he said.

“Our neighbours are in a temporary home, so we checked on them, and as we were talking to them, a slip happened at the back of the property and pushed one of their sheds into their car and out onto the driveway, so they came over and spent the rest of the night with us sleeping in our lounge.”

Ruffell said his neighbours had gone to a friend’s house while Fire and Emergency visited their property.

“They’ve inspected it, and they’ve said that they can’t move back into there until they’ve had a geotechnical review of the property, so, yeah, going to have to let them know when they get back.”

Ruffell said the flooding had gone down as soon as the heavy rain stopped.

“It’s been going down and down. The creek is still up quite high, but we’re looking forward to a bit more rain this evening, according to the forecast – and the high winds – so the concern is how those high winds might affect trees that have been weakened from the rain.”

Polania Walmer said his father had come to stay for the night, and was sleeping on the lowest floor of the house he shared with his brother, when the thunderstorm hit.

He woke up to his father banging on his door, telling him to get out of the house as it had been “completely flooded.”

Walmer feared being electrocuted as walked outside his bedroom door.

He was unable to open the door and had to break a window in order for his family to be able to escape.

“That was really scary in the moment,” Walmer said.

Walmer said his father, brother, and himself had stayed with his friend, Brandon, until the rain had stopped.

Neither his brother or himself had insurance. Walmer said he had lost everything.

Berhampore

A resident of the suburb of Berhampore had to help her elderly neighbour evacuate her badly-flooded home.

The woman, who did not want to be named, could hear a “powerful rush of water” when she opened her door around 3.30am.

She told RNZ that she woke up to the sound of heavy rain, thinking it may have been hail.

“I was quite surprised to see the road completely flooded.”

She feared for her elderly neighbour, who later had to be evacuated.

“I immediately called 111 to check on her.

“I called her, and all I could hear was, ‘I cannot see anything, my house is full of water.’ The call then disconnected.”

The woman said she went down the stairs at the back of her house, and knocked on her window, with a torch in hand.

“I could see her moving frantically inside her house.

“I called 111 again. After about 20 minutes, someone arrived, and I requested their assistance to help my neighbor.

“She was safely evacuated.”

The woman said her husband, son, and herself have moved to a friend’s house – after Fire and Emergency helped her cross the road.

“We are currently renting in this property and are staying in a friend’s one-bedroom flat.

“We are uncertain about our next steps or how to manage the cleaning.

“Given the condition of the house, I have concerns about its safety for habitation.

“I am also apprehensive about securing a new, affordable rental property in this vicinity.”

Island Bay

Dhilum Nightingale told RNZ how The Parade in Island Bay was “completely submerged with water”.

“The surface flooding was crazy.”

Nightingale left her home at 5.45am, and took a detour to avoid as much of The Parade as possible.

It was particularly bad in between Tamar Street and Dee Street, Nightingale added.

“I was a little bit, ‘Should I keep going? Should I not?’ But there were other cars that were driving, just really slowly, and I could see they were getting through, so I kept going.”

Nightingale saw people being evacuated with help from Fire and Emergency in the suburb of Berhampore.

“It was just a huge amount of water,” she said.

“I did see this massive torrent, actually, coming down from the – there’s a field just past Dee Street on The Parade – and there was a huge waterfall of water just gushing down it. That was really dramatic.”

Another resident woke up at 5.30am to her friend at her door, after her house was inundated with water.

Erin, who did not want to share her last name, was fortunate to live up a hill.

“We had a little bit of flooding, but not too much, compared to other people,” she said.

Erin said a good friend from the suburb of Berhampore had shown up at her house in her pyjamas.

“She’s lost everything in her flat… it was below the road level, and the water just has come through the whole flat.

“She said, as she was walking out, the fridge was bobbing around beside her in the kitchen.

“She grabbed as much as she could. By the time she left, the water was halfway up her thighs.”

She said Fire and Emergency had helped her upstairs, and a person driving past had given her a ride to Erin’s house.

“I’m so glad she came.

“We just chucked her straight in the shower, and gave her a change of clothes.

Erin said her friend had since returned to her house, “trying to salvage what she can.”

“So yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

Erin said drove past The Parade on her way to work, at around 8.30am.

She said it seemed as if every shop in the Island Bay Village had flooded.

“Everyone was just out, mopping, trying to get rid of as much of the water as possible.”

Erin said Empire Cinema & Eatery “does a great coffee trade”, and people were still lining up for a takeaway coffee.

“They were just making the best that they could out of the situation.”

Ōwhiro Bay

Jess Allen said the flood damage in Ōwhiro Bay was severe, with several houses inundated and cars washed out to sea.

Allen told RNZ that there was debris everywhere on Happy Valley Road, from the suburb of Brooklyn down to Ōwhiro Bay.

“I’m on the side of the road that’s not affected, but the side of the road where the stream goes down behind the houses – that stream came up very rapidly in the night, and families had to evacuate,” she said.

“Someone had to climb out their windows to get to the neighbour’s house.”

Allen said Ōwhiro Stream “had raged”.

She spotted one car on Ōwhiro Bay beach, and said there were also three others “that are just missing”.

She added that Ōwhiro Stream had broken bridges, and there were also fallen trees, alongside the debris.

“I drove my electric car to work, but I really wish I’d had a four-wheel drive.”

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