{"id":392995,"date":"2026-04-23T01:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392995\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:17:08","slug":"morrinsville-flooding-insurance-office-hit-by-rapid-storm-downpour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392995\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrinsville flooding: Insurance office hit by rapid storm downpour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\" The flooding outside Vercoe Insurance Brokers. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the business\u2019s first problem of this sort, however, as Vercoe said major flooding in 2021 got into the building and helped prepare them for future events.<\/p>\n

That included purchasing a floodgate to protect the large glass doors and stocking up on sandbags. The local council upgraded drainage around the store as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of past experiences we\u2019ve also got sandbags that we put at the back door, so there were five or six of them outside.\u201c<\/p>\n

Vercoe said the whole street experienced the same level of flooding but it didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It] pretty much went down straight away. It happened in a period of half an hour and then it was pretty much gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matamata-Piako District Council was aware of surface flooding in the Morrinsville town centre, a spokesperson said, noting the insurance office is in a \u201cknown low point\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitial checks confirmed the local stormwater network was operating at capacity at the time, and there were no blockages found at nearby sump grates. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a precaution, crews are continuing to inspect the surrounding stormwater network, including checking whether there may be any partial blockages within the pipework.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Vercoe Insurance Brokers’ individual floodgate adds an extra layer of protection. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The council is updating flood modelling for Morrinsville town centre to \u201cimprove understanding of flood risk and help guide next steps\u201d, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

The flooding followed what was a \u201crelatively active thunderstorm\u201d over Morrinsville from 4-5pm, according to MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris. <\/p>\n

He added 56 lightning strikes were recorded in the storm, with 213 in the Waikato region.<\/p>\n

\" Linda Vercoe, owner of Vercoe Insurance Brokers on Morrinsville\u2019s main street, said she noticed water rapidly rising on the footpath just before 5pm. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

He said the Morrinsville area received an estimated 20-40 millimetres of rain on Monday, but acknowledged the figure \u201ccould be out by a bit\u201d given the storm\u2019s activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe showery nature of the weather for Waikato [on Monday] meant a few spots saw an hour or so of heavy rain but the daily accumulations didn\u2019t come to much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Looking forward, Ferris said the Waikato region could have a dry run to the end of the week.<\/p>\n

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The flooding outside Vercoe Insurance Brokers. Photo \/ Supplied It wasn\u2019t the business\u2019s first problem of this sort,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3595,1656,47957,203046,19555,3052,203047,19876,71,2964,3594,45613,17053,1224,5983,9878,31045,111,43,139,69,6270,2730,1435,120416,673,35924,109558],"class_list":{"0":"post-392995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-by","9":"tag-company","10":"tag-deploying","11":"tag-downpour","12":"tag-evening","13":"tag-faced","14":"tag-floodgate","15":"tag-flooding","16":"tag-from","17":"tag-half","18":"tag-hit","19":"tag-imported","20":"tag-insurance","21":"tag-italy","22":"tag-levels","23":"tag-monday","24":"tag-morrinsville","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newzealand","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-office","30":"tag-personal","31":"tag-rapid","32":"tag-sandbagging","33":"tag-storm","34":"tag-surface","35":"tag-tyre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392995","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=392995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}