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Piha is cut off and residents are without power after a night of heavy rain and slips.
Journalist Mary Holm was in the neighbourhood overnight and this morning.
“Horizontal rain was pounding ... the house was shaking and water was coming through the windows, round the edge of alumium windows,” Holm said.
”At North Piha, right at the northern end, the road is flooded and I talked to a guy who swam through it. It’s chest-deep.”
Nearby, a house was badly damaged. ”The whole bank came down behind them. And so quite a few people spent the night at the RSA.”
A bank had collapsed in several places behind houses, damaging multiple properties.
Holm said firefighters believed at least three homes were severely damaged, one each on North Piha Rd, Rayner Rd, and Garden Rd.
Overnight the Marawhara stream which usually flowed beneath North Piha Rd had flooded for about 50m and covered the road.
”It’s now just covered in debris but the road is passable now at the end,” Holm said.
”Further along the Wekatahi Stream, the bank’s collapsed and there’s a big concrete lamp post in there, all crooked. It’s on a big angle and the power lines are still attached to it, but the whole thing’s probably not going to last that long.”
Holm drove south and said more damage was visible. ”There are multiple slips coming down the hill and into the village. The road is totally covered with rubble.”
A local builder told Holm the road at least didn’t seem to have been undermined, so that indicated a good chance it could be cleared.
There was flooding in the nearby Glen Esk valley towards Kitekite Falls.
Glen Esk Rd was passable only with four-wheel-drive vehicles. The rubble and detritus covering the local roads mostly seemed to be soil and rocks.
But some big rocks above houses seemed perched precariously on the hillside. ”You’re thinking: That could come down at any minute,” Holm added.
A Vector outages map indicated the whole neighbourhood was without power this morning.
Holm said some locals had generators or off-grid power but most probably did not.
In many homes, local water tanks were full but with no power available, there was no way for many people to pump the water.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.