After floods and slips comes the clean up – so where do you start?<\/a><\/p>\n“Our driveway was a raging torrent and the fence had ended up out on the street,” Judy Parker said. “It was absolutely phenomenal.”<\/p>\n
![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_29_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nMichael and Judy Parker were among those assessing the damage on Sunday, after flooding on Saturday.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Firewood they had stacked scattered with the flooding and one of their cars was inundated with floodwaters.<\/p>\n
She said they had already reached out to their insurance company and the clean up was well underway.<\/p>\n
“We are so lucky, so lucky that it’s as minimal as what it is.”<\/p>\n
![\"Daril](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_30_jfif.jpeg\")
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\nDaril Thomas
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Daril Thomas was also trying to get excess water out of his garage today.<\/p>\n
“The carpets are all saturated, the walls are going to have to all be cut out and dried out, and there were some items in here that were electrical in nature that were destroyed.”<\/p>\n
He said he was now thinking about what options he could look at to reduce the risk of his garage flooding again.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at Light House Cinema in P\u0101uatahanui, owner Simon Werry said there was a lot of silt and mud on the property that needed cleaning up.<\/p>\n
But the cinemas themselves hadn’t been impacted, he said, and they were still able to trade.<\/p>\n
![\"Groundup](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_26_jfif.jpeg\")
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\nGroundup Cafe supervisor James Lloyd
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Nearby Groundup cafe were also open for trade today, but supervisor James Lloyd said trade this weekend had been significantly hampered by the flooding and road closures.<\/p>\n
“We normally have a line out the door already, so yeah, it’s pretty bad.”<\/p>\n
![\"Volunteers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_23_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nVolunteers cleaning up Forest & Bird Cottage on Sunday.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Robin Chesterfield was among a group of volunteers helping clean out a cottage belonging to Forest and Bird.<\/p>\n
“The water’s come up into the cottage here,” he said. “Just a very thin layer of water with a lot of mud.”<\/p>\n
“So, we’re just cleaning out and we’re going to have to rip the carpet up and do away with carpet.”<\/p>\n
![\"Andrew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_22_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAndrew and Jenny Frazer
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Andrew and Jenny Frazer’s home flooded inside.<\/p>\n
The pair had professional cleaners in on Saturday night to help them extract the water.<\/p>\n
“1 o’clock this morning, we finally collapsed,” Andrew Frazer said.<\/p>\n
However they still had quite a mess on their hands, he said.<\/p>\n
In nearby Judgeford, Jackie Thomas-Teague said they have a little river running through their property, but on Saturday it was “raging … logs were flowing down it”.<\/p>\n
It was the worst flooding she’s seen on the property: “It was just wall to wall water from one side of the valley to the other.”<\/p>\n
Several residents raised concerns about the area being vulnerable to flooding and were worried about their properties getting flooded again.<\/p>\n
![\"P\u0101uatahanui](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXBZO_shared_image_31_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
They wanted both Porirua City Council and the government to take a hard look at the infrastructure in the area and to consider what measures could be put in place to reduce flooding risk.<\/p>\n
Several residents said culverts in the area weren’t up to scratch.<\/p>\n
Porirua City Council said the culverts were at end of their life and due for renewal. However it said the renewal would not change hydraulic performance in weather events such as what occurred on Saturday.<\/p>\n
![\"P\u0101uatahanui](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_24_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA bridge near Light House Cinema, in P\u0101uatahanui
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Krystal Gibbens\n<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clean-up underway: Silt and gravel at Light House Cinemas, in Porirua’s P\u0101uatahanui, which was hit by unexpected flooding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-387193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387193","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=387193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"P\u0101uatahanui](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPXC9F_shared_image_27_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n