{"id":511442,"date":"2026-07-05T22:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511442\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T22:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:10:13","slug":"oamaru-woman-stuck-at-house-due-to-flooding-after-trying-to-evacuate-her-blind-nephew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511442\/","title":{"rendered":"Oamaru woman stuck at house due to flooding after trying to evacuate her blind nephew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oamaru resident discusses overnight flooding<\/p>\n

Morning Report<\/p>\n

An Oamaru woman is stuck at her sister’s house due to flooding as she tried to help evacuate her two nephews – one who is blind and the other in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Raylene Mulligan, a local of more than 50 years, said she had never seen flooding this severe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At about 3am, Mulligan drove to her sister’s house in North Oamaru, hoping to evacuate her nephews.<\/p>\n

“My sister messaged and said she had water up to her backdoor. I very carefully made my way to her house… and here I am!<\/p>\n

“I just thought I needed to get them back to my place where it’s safe but unfortunately I was a little bit late.”<\/p>\n

Mulligan said she was now stuck there with them in the house, due to flooding outside.<\/p>\n

She said as she drove to her sister’s house the water was up over the hubcaps of her truck.<\/p>\n

“The front yard is knee high in water. So there’s no way I could push a wheel-chair to even get to my truck.”<\/p>\n

She said with more warning from the council, she might have been able to get them out safely.<\/p>\n

“I knew there was a weather warning, and I’d been keeping an eye on the council website and there was nothing so I thought we must be all right.”<\/p>\n

She said the state of emergency declaration should have come hours earlier.<\/p>\n

“Anxiety was pretty high, to be honest.”<\/p>\n

\"Flooding<\/p>\n

Flooding on a street in North Oamaru overnight.<\/p>\n

SUPPLIED<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Oamaru grandmother Sonya Rigg said she got a call in the early hours that her grandchildren’ s room was flooding.<\/p>\n

“It was just absolutely pouring down.”<\/p>\n

She arrived to see the lower part of her son’s home covered in water.<\/p>\n

She took her four grandchildren home while emergency services arrived to pump out water.<\/p>\n

However, she said getting back to her house near the CBD was difficult, having to negotiate through different streets to avoid flooding.<\/p>\n

She was too frustrated the council’s State of Emergency declaration came on Monday morning, saying people were choosing to evacuate hours before.<\/p>\n

“The amount of water around here, the amount of damage to properties is just ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

\"Flooding<\/p>\n

Flooding at a property in Oamaru, July 2026.<\/p>\n

Dana Turbucz Lucaci \/ supplied<\/p>\n

While the fire brigade worked to pump water out of a Nen St resident’s home, she said her driveway was filling up again.<\/p>\n

Dana Turbucz Lucaci woke up at 4am and couldn’t walk down the stairs to the lower level of her home.<\/p>\n

“It gave me a fright, I mean really, up to our knees. I’ve never seen water like that.”<\/p>\n

\"Flooding<\/p>\n

Flooding at a property in Oamaru, July 2026.<\/p>\n

Dana Turbucz Lucaci \/ supplied<\/p>\n

She ran a beauty salon from her home and said her equipment was underwater. She had cancelled on her clients for today and the next few days.<\/p>\n

Even with emergency services using two pumps, and Turbucz Lucaci’s own pump working, the property appeared to be flooding again.<\/p>\n

“It looks like now the driveway’s halfway full again, so it might be round two.”<\/p>\n

\"Flooding<\/p>\n

Flooding at a property in Oamaru, July 2026.<\/p>\n

Dana Turbucz Lucaci \/ supplied<\/p>\n

She was optimistic, hoping sunshine would come soon.<\/p>\n

“You can’t fight weather.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oamaru resident discusses overnight flooding Morning Report An Oamaru woman is stuck at her sister’s house due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-511442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511442","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=511442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}