Weather: Worry for homes in hilly Coromandel areas as more rain falls

Stay vigilant and safe is the advice as yet more rain descends on a “stormed fatigued” Coromandel.

The peninsula is under a heavy rain warning until tomorrow morning with severe thunderstorms also a possibility.

A heavy rain watch is also in place for the Western Bay of Plenty.

Thames-Coromandel District Council said this morning up to 180mm of rain could fall in localised areas, especially in the northern half of the peninsula, from late this afternoon through to 2am tomorrow.

Thunderstorms could result in over 40mm of rain falling within an hour and, if this did happen, surface flooding was very likely.

Civil Defence controller Garry Towler said absolutely everyone was totally storm fatigued and over the weather.

“It is important to remain vigilant, well informed and safe during these kinds of storms,” he said.

“Waters can rise very quickly during thunderstorms which could impact roads, this also adds to land instability issues in many places. If you live on or in front of a hillside, keep checking for cracks on your section that have developed or increased and contact us at council if you have serious concerns”.

Towler told RNZ this morning the situation hadn’t been too bad overnight with trees and a few small slips coming down.

“Which has been good, but the weather is building up.

“Our main focus today is to stay very well connected with MetService and keeping an eye on possible thunderstorms that could be looming - because they could dump a very large amount of rain in a very small area.

“That in itself could create some land instability where we have very fragile hillside urban areas.”

Asked what particular areas he was worried about, Towler said the “entire Coromandel”.

“It’s very fragile, it’s just soaked to the core.”

He said they were very fortunate that urban search and rescue teams, who’d been in the area after Cyclone Gabrielle, had taken some very good drone footage, that gave them a chance to look at some vulnerable areas that hadn’t been inspected yet.

At this stage the weather didn’t indicate the need to evacuate people, Towler said.

“On the Coromandel they are very good at making the decision themselves to self-evacuate if they are not comfortable.”

Meanwhile, Tairāwhiti Civil Defence evacuated residents in Tokomaru Bay north of Gisborne last night as rainfall risked leading to the failure of a debris dam upstream of the township.

Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz told the Herald she was worried about the weather causing more flooding and slips on an already fragile roading network. “We don’t need this.”

Stoltz said the teams were keeping a close eye on the weather conditions across the region.

“Tokomaru Bay was evacuated safely yesterday. No issues have been reported overnight regarding the debris dam. We are asking residents to be prepared. Let us know about flooding or any other issues the council needs to be aware of.”