Rescue operation to evacuate family from flooded Clevedon home

A Clevedon family of six are being evacuated by boat and police helicopter from their flooded home.

The house, on the Clevedon-Kawakawa Bay Rd was flooded and the helicopter was keeping overhead surveillance after the road into the area was cut off overnight by the overflowing Wairoa River.

The operation began at 8.35am.

Grant Henson says he wants his wife, four children and two dogs to get to dry land.

The family has been forced to watch sheep on their property drown while waiting to be evacuated, Henson said. The family's cars were almost fully submerged.

Floodwaters are fast creeping up on the home, and he his wife and four children are being rescued by boats making their way up the swollen Wairoa River.

He says they woke up this morning to hear some of the 2000 sheep drowning. He doesn't know how many of them will survive.

Earlier, three people and a dog were rescued from floodwaters by a Coastguard inflatable craft.