Flooding in Waimauku traps residents with road Wintour Rd especially cut off with no pedestrian access. Video / Supplied
A Waimauku woman who has been trapped at home by flooding is worried she will run out of food and her pets will starve.
Louise Mark, her partner and their three dogs have been waiting for five days for the water to subside after Cyclone Gabrielle lashed the region on Monday night.
Mark, who lives in Wintour Rd, says the only way she can get to the nearest supermarket, which is a kilometre away, is to swim.
“We are completely cut off and we have enough frozen veges and tinned food to last us till the weekend. There is no vehicle access so we would need to swim. Obviously, we are on septic tanks so that water is not exactly nice or safe to be in.”
Residents of cul-de-sac Wintour Rd and Cloverfield Drive off SH16, Waimauku, who have been flooded in since Monday, try to clear a blocked drain by towing out a fallen tree. Photo / Michael Craig
Mark said she has always been sceptical of weather forecasts in the past, but Cyclone Gabrielle was a weather bomb and “the real deal”.
Heavy downpours, winds exceeding 100km/h and powerful surge swells caused enormous damage across the county, from Northland down to Auckland, to the Coromandel Peninsula, and across the country to Hawkes Bay, Gisborne and the East Coast. Telecommunications towers and power lines have been affected and lives have been lost.
Her neighbours from Cloverfield Drive and Buttercup Rd, who have also been impacted by the flooding, have pedestrian access only to the Waimauku township. According to Mark, the council’s contractor Downer told her there wasn’t much she could do but “sit and wait” for the water to recede by itself.
“A number of us phoned the council; they told us to ring Downer. I have also lodged a complaint with the emergency management centre. We have had this level of flooding on numerous occasions in the past and the water goes down within 12 hours of the rain stopping. It’s now been four days, which strongly suggests a culvert blockage.”
The Herald has sought comment from Downer but they didn’t respond. But they arrived late afternoon with a pump. Mark says the water has receded slightly but is waist high and she has no access.
After last night’s rainfall, Mark said the water had risen another 10cm.
Local builder Oliver Rich, who lives in Cloverfield Drive, is used to the area being flooded but is concerned the water on the road is not draining fast enough. “It’s gone down 100ml in 50 hours and hasn’t moved in the last 24 hours.”
He is one of the lucky residents who has pedestrian access to Waimauku and says the community is rallying around each other. Anthony Mitchell, another resident, was neck deep in water as he and Rich cleared a 30m gum tree that fell onto the middle of the road.
Anthony Mitchell wades through water at Waimauku near Cloverfield Drive. Photo / Supplied
Mitchell said the flooding was worse last month but the water subsided much faster.
Louise Mark says she is concerned for her elderly neighbour who is sawing seven pine trees that fell onto his property two days ago.
“He’s out there chopping his pine trees with a chainsaw. If he has an accident or requires medical assistance, I don’t know what the f**k will happen. The guy at the end of the chainsaw is elderly so if he had an accident, I don’t know what we would do.”
