Flood clean-up expected to cost millions

The clean-up of the upper North Island is underway after four days of torrential rain but it is expected to take months and cost millions of dollars.

Rain hit the region on Thursday evening and lasted until late on Saturday night.

Early estimates have put the cost of fixing roads and making houses safe will take at least a month and the cost of repairing Coromandel's roads has been put at over $1 million, Radio New Zealand reported today.

The small Coromandel coastal settlement of Hahei was drenched with 170mm of rain fell in just four hours, sewerage pumps had to be pumped out when a neighbouring stream burst its banks and slips covered roads and threatened houses.

Hahei Residents Association chairman John North told Morning Report that after some major clean-up work things were now looking better.

"The clean-up is making more progress and sure it's going to take a little bit of time but I'm sure they will recover quite well."

The community had rallied to support those hardest hit by the flooding, he said.

Three houses next to the biggest slip in Hahei were not able to be entered until structural engineers were able to judge whether they could be saved, it was reported.

Thames Coromandel District Council spokesman Peter Hazael said all three of the dwellings were holiday homes.

"Sixty per cent of our housing stock in the peninsula are second homes or holiday homes so at times like this it normally affects those homes but the hardship is to try to get hold of those people to tell them that their houses have been in flood."

Mr Hazael said it was too early to estimate the exact cost of the flood damage.

"It will be going on over the next couple of weeks as we start to stabilise things.

"We had one [a flood] in January and we have just got the cost in and that was over one and a half million dollars just on the roading work alone."

Orewa and Rotorua were also hit by flooding and the road between Napier and Taihape remained closed overnight due to several slips.

At Lake Okareka near Rotorua one eyewitness said she was woken from her sleep on Saturday by the sound of a slip.

Police and fire safety officers attended a home on Okareka Loop Road, which they determined too dangerous to occupy.

In Orewa on Saturday night, up to half a metre of water flooded basements on Florence Ave and brought traffic to a standstill on the main highway and on Hibiscus Coast Highway, it was reported.

Environment Waikato emergency flood response officer Jan Hania said the sudden activity caused by Friday's rain had settled down by yesterday.

Over the weekend in Hawke's Bay 80mm fell in Napier and 111mm on Hastings. Senior Station Officer Mike Peachey of the Napier Fire Service said surprisingly few problems had resulted, the newspaper reported.

- NZPA