Wellington’s recent flooding<\/a> in one of the most severe events since records began.<\/p>\nThat’s an initial assessment from the Wellington City Council chief executive Matt Prosser, who told councillors on Thursday many people were forced to evacuate their homes, and lost all of their belongings.<\/p>\n
Prosser said nearly 700 properties were affected by flooding, heavy silt, debris, or slips.<\/p>\n
“Over that 48-hour window the city saw rainfall totals that nearly tripled monthly averages, but… that really only tells part of the story as to what was a unique event about how this was geographically isolated [in] some of the most severe downpours.”<\/p>\n
About 40 people are being provided with temporary accommodation due to their homes being uninhabitable, and 60 households need council assessments, Chief Planning Officer Liam Hodgetts said.<\/p>\n
Whakamaru – which had been set up as an emergency accommodation – will be stood down on Friday, but a recovery response team will now be stood up.<\/p>\n
Vogeltown resident Darren Young said he is one of the many residents who is still homeless due to the event.<\/p>\n
“At 3.30am I knew we were in trouble, and at 3.43 we rang 111 to evacuate.<\/p>\n
“They did not come.”<\/p>\n
Young said he got a phone call at 6am from 105 asking if he and his family were ok.<\/p>\n
He said contaminated water from a broken sewer pipe flowed through his property, and that a large slip in the catchment above his house is preventing work from being done.<\/p>\n
He only had six months of insurance cover for alternative accommodation, he said.<\/p>\n
“What we need is clarity from council to know what’s happening with that slip, because until that’s gone that could be brought down in the next weather event, flood that culvert again – which is going to be cleared today – and then the water comes back down again to our place.”<\/p>\n
Prosser said the cost of the disaster was still being worked out, but the response had so far cost $200,000, $100,000 of which was contributed to a mayoral relief fund.<\/p>\n
Berhampore, Newtown, Island Bay, Vogeltown, Brooklyn, South Karori and \u014cwhiro Bay experienced “dramatically” more flooding than other parts of the city, he said.<\/p>\n
He said he had an emergency power to approve up to $1 million of spending without councillors’ approval – and would come back to the council if costs exceeded that.<\/p>\n
Mayor Andrew Little said a relief fund set up in the aftermath has now reached over $256,000 – which includes the council’s $100,000 contribution.<\/p>\n
About 155 applications for relief have been made.<\/p>\n
Councillors have asked Prosser to report back by the end of September the effects of the city’s storm event.<\/p>\n
They are also directing officers to give advice on “above-ground stormwater interventions” to reduce flood-risk.<\/p>\n
The council said it was treating the slip near Young’s property as a “priority”.<\/p>\n
Mayor Andrew Little said during the meeting that Young had raised a critical point about clearing up the slip and he would be following that up, along with councillors Laurie Foon and Ray Chung.<\/p>\n
“We know this is ongoing for you – you’ve got a really challenging period ahead.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A landslide on Balfour St in Mornington, Wellington. Photo: MARK PAPALII \/ RNZ More than 1800 properties were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-405486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405486","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=405486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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