{"id":286506,"date":"2026-02-16T08:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/286506\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T08:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:58:08","slug":"south-wairarapa-residents-coming-together-during-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/286506\/","title":{"rendered":"South Wairarapa residents coming together during floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wild weather meant South Wairarapa farmer Scotty Macdonald didn\u2019t get much sleep, after helping evacuate three homes early on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

\"SouthSouth Wairarapa communities have been cut off during the storms. Photo \/ RNZ, Mary Argue<\/p>\n

Macdonald said the callouts weren\u2019t official.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t get to Lake Ferry to get the fire trucks so we were just in our personal wagons.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said a couple of the homes were already on their way out the door, but the first call at 4am on Monday necessitated a wake-up.<\/p>\n

A farmer shifting animals had got in touch with him directly after becoming concerned about flooding at his neighbour\u2019s place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s previously flooded so we knew there was a risk there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin another hour the house was probably close to a metre underwater, but at the time it was only lapping around the edges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resident was woken up \u201cvery politely, of course\u201d and told it was time to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to boogie, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald said the extent of the flooding has split already cut-off settlements into little islands on high ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll along the road \u2013 where the rivers meet the road \u2013 the roads have been flooded, so we\u2019ve kind of got little sections of population all the way along that are semi-isolated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here all my life and we\u2019ve had events like this before, but as far as the water levels go, this would be the highest. There are unprecedented areas that haven\u2019t seen this kind of flooding before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA falling tree in Carterton took out a car and powerlines. Photo \/ RNZ, Mary Argue<\/p>\n

Macdonald said reception was patchy, but support agencies had been making phone calls and neighbours were checking in on one another where they could.<\/p>\n

He said the only thing to do now was to hunker down and wait for the water to drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just too dangerous to go anywhere at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resident told RNZ it had been a \u201clong and loud night\u201d and they were flooded in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019re] in the process of getting fallen trees off the driveways and the road in case the rivers decide to overflow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh tide\u2019s not until 5am, so we\u2019ll be watching how the day goes!\u201d<\/p>\n

They said friends in Wh\u0101ngaimoana beach have had \u201ctheir whole house go under\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA creek has burst its banks on Lake Ferry Road south of Martinborough, Wairarapa.
\nPhoto \/ RNZ, Mary Argue<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency\u2019s Ian Wright said earlier on Monday that residents in Ng\u0101w\u012b had been evacuated to Pirinoa Hall because of rising floodwaters, as well as some tourists at The Pinnacles Campgrounds.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning former South Wairarapa District Councillor Brian Jephson told Local Democracy Reporting (LDR)\u2019s Sue Teodoro that Cape Palliser Rd on the Wellington side of Ng\u0101w\u012b was damaged where a stream had blown out a culvert.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impassable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not much point going down there until the water stops going through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jephson said while he had about 62mm of rain, his daughter further north had more than 200mm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is nothing new for us down this way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Powerco reported at 8.45am on Monday that storms across the lower North Island left 23,455 customers without power.<\/p>\n

The hardest-hit areas were the Wairarapa with 8166 outages, Whanganui with 7846, and Manawat\u016b with 6961.<\/p>\n

\u201cWild weather is expected to continue in parts of the network today which may hamper reconnection work and cause more outages,\u201d a spokesperson told LDR.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wild weather meant South Wairarapa farmer Scotty Macdonald didn\u2019t get much sleep, after helping evacuate three homes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38534,24004,2837,3092,7052,111,43,139,69,530,1240,12637,62],"class_list":{"0":"post-286506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-argue","9":"tag-coming","10":"tag-during","11":"tag-floods","12":"tag-mary","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-residents","18":"tag-south","19":"tag-together","20":"tag-wairarapa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}