Onehunga residents have called for urgent repairs to drains following major flooding.
Video / Supplied
Twenty years of letters written to Auckland Council by a central suburbs resident have still not resulted in action, as “broken pipes” and bad drainage worsened recent flood damage in the suburb.
The issue leaves a local with having to unclog the public drain every time it rains to prevent further flooding, while others find items like nappies washed onto their property.
Wednesday’s flood left Onehunga waist-high in floodwaters, but this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence on Beachcroft Ave.
Mary Tixier has lived in a property on the street since she was 5. She’s since bought it off her mum, with the house originally was one of only 10 in the area.
While the suburb has since expanded dramatically, Tixier said the drainage infrastructure hasn’t kept up - the wastewater system only designed to deal with minimal numbers of housing.
Wednesday’s flood left Onehunga waist-high in floodwaters, but this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence on Beachcroft Ave. Photo / Supplied
“Any amount of rain we get, there’s always floods down here,” she said.
“I’m lucky our property is up a driveway a bit, but [Auckland Council] never fix the problem or finish the jobs.”
Tixier said the drainage pipes have been reviewed by council workers in the past, they were revealed to be cracked and broken due to poor maintenance.
Grates were put in by Auckland Council at the bottom of several driveways which, according to Tixier, does “absolutely nothing” - many of them broken, damaged by trucks driving over them.
In frustration, Tixier’s mother began writing to the council about her concerns about the issue. A couple of letters a year, every year for the past 20 years.
The persistence, while admirable, has not paid off.
On Wednesday, buses were trawling through deep floodwater and properties were swamped. The Onehunga Reserve’s pond had water overflow and flooded the reserve.
When this happened on the Friday prior, dead fish could be seen left on the reserve’s grass.
A bus with passengers on board drives through floodwaters in Beachcroft Ave, Onehunga. Photo / Supplied
The intense rainfall ended up dumping debris from the top of a nearby hill on to Tixier’s property, including used nappies.
“The floods we had on Friday and yesterday were one-off but we have continuous, I mean honestly continuous flooding with normal rainfall,” she said.
A Network Construction letter sent to Trixier’s mother in 2007 quoted a report, confirming the sewer pipe on the street is suitable for single dwellings, but with only 10 to 15 houses feeding it.
“Taking both these factors into account, the [sewage line in question] is grossly undersized,” the letter reads.
Tix said had there been proper drainage in place, the floods on Friday and Wednesday wouldn’t have been as bad.
“We’ve been having these issues non-stop, but there was just nowhere [for the water] to go,” she said.
“It wouldn’t have been that bad, since there were other areas with decent drainage that weren’t as badly flooded.”
Another Beachcroft Ave local, Greg Capper, has taken it upon himself to unclog the drains when the rain begins to fall.
For the past nine years, Capper has become the neighbourhood’s saviour as he trudges into the rain and unlocks a drain on the street, to prevent it from overflowing and flooding nearby properties.
Another Beachcroft Ave local, Greg Capper, has taken it upon himself to unclog the drains when the rain begins to fall. Photo / Supplied
“The whole infrastructure is just not good,” he told the Herald.
He believes the issue has got worse over recent years, at one stage he was spotted by a staff member at Watercare who noted his efforts and got the drainage “somewhat improved”.
Such is the pressure to protect his home and others from the risk of flooding, he’s sometimes had to leave work to return home and maintain the drainage.
“Council need to act, absolutely. We just need the drainage to be here.”
Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters acknowledged Beachcroft Rd’s low-lying area and known history as a flood zone.
According to head of planning, Nick Vigar, roadside catchpit sumps on Beachcroft are emptied as part of their annual maintenance programme.
“They were last emptied in January, and surface level cleans are managed by Auckland Transport,” he said.
Vigar also noted that Auckland experienced its largest-ever rainfall event on record with impacts felt region-wide.
“Auckland’s stormwater system wasn’t designed to take so much intense rainfall in such a short time, it was designed to cope with more frequent, smaller rainfall events,” said Vigar.
“Improvements to localised areas would not have prevented the widespread flooding experienced, considering the amount of water the region received.”
