fell in parts of Wellington<\/a> over 48 hours in April.<\/p>\nHomeowners hit by April’s devastating floods say financial stress is mounting as support runs out. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Forty properties became uninhabitable, including \u014cwhiro Bay resident Catherine Beech’s home, where floodwaters rose almost to eye level.<\/p>\n
“This was the tide mark, as it were, on the other side of the house. Almost up to eye level,” Beech said.<\/p>\n
![\"Ōwhiro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/owhiro-bay-resident-catherine-beech-PV7QI7QD6BHXVH6DGMWNKSCAY4.png\")
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\u014cwhiro Bay resident Catherine Beech. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
She was among homeowners calling for government support similar to that offered to Aucklanders after the 2023 floods.<\/p>\n
“They were offered a package of co-funded support from central government and local government to assess the properties, to assess the risk to life of people’s properties,” Beech said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they were considered to be at high risk, then they were offered a buyout or they were offered some financial support to mitigate the risk to the property.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Wellington Mayor Andrew Little says that kind of support is unlikely.<\/p>\n
![\"Wellington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/wellington-mayor-andrew-little-HRCRFNKU4FEGJCBYR3SY52SF24.png\")
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Wellington Mayor Andrew Little. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a pretty clear signal early on the government wasn’t going to be part of any sort of buyout scheme,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that we saw, for example, with Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, I think there’s some recent statements where the government has said in future the risk of big weather events causing damage is something that the government just can’t underwrite.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell reiterated that position, saying the government had provided $46,000 to help with accommodation costs and another $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund.<\/p>\n
He said he would consider extra funding in future if another disaster strikes.<\/p>\n
Insurance Council chief executive Kris Faafoi said the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events made it important to plan ahead.<\/p>\n
![\"Insurance](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/insurance-council-representative-kris-faafoi-B7QHATJ44JGYBNWWQJNTUBTE74.png\")
<\/p>\n
Insurance Council chief executive Kris Faafoi. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
“If these events continue to happen in terms of their frequency and their severity, then it may become more costly,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That’s why the insurance sector for some time now has been talking to government and to council, saying we have the opportunity to get ahead of this.”<\/p>\n
For Young, the pressure is mounting as his home remains unliveable and his accommodation support is about to run out.<\/p>\n
“The pressure is really on because our accommodation benefit starts to run out very soon, and if we don’t get back into our property, we’ll be essentially homeless,” he said.<\/p>\n
It’s a situation he’s desperately trying to avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homeowners in Wellington say they feel abandoned, six months on from severe floods that destroyed their homes. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,687,111,139,69,814,147,3393,52],"class_list":["post-634178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-housing-and-infrastructure","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-property","tag-science","tag-weather-news","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634178","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=634178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Vogeltown](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/vogeltown-resident-darren-young-said-the-damage-to-his-prope-EK5RUNYCZ5FXVJ5AZOLWLIKS6U.png\")
<\/p>\n