Residents fear for future after slip at St Clair, Dunedin

Geotechnical assessments will be carried out this week on a devastating slip in Ravenswood Rd, St Clair.

The slip prompted urgent evacuations.

Ravenswood Rd residents were ordered from their properties as the slip, which shunted cars down the hillside above the street, threatened their homes.

Residents reported the slip, about 8.15am on Saturday, "sounding like thunder" as it tumbled from the hillside and pushed a car through a garage at the rear of one property.

A large slip cut a path of destruction down the hillside above Ravenswood Rd, St Clair, on Saturday morning, damaging three cars and a garage. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery, Otago Daily Times

Twelve homes were evacuated immediately following the slip, and one will remain empty for weeks. Resident Ruth Kelsall said she and her family were woken by police sirens on Saturday morning.

There was a knock on the door and they were told to get out. She rushed to gather what possessions she could and get her 13-year-old and 10-year-old daughters ready, when a police officer came back and told her she had to leave immediately.

"Just before that I asked my husband about the cats, what should we do with them?" she said.

"The policeman said we haven't got time to worry about that, we need to get out now."

She left filled with anxiety about what would await her when the family returned.

"We weren't told to go anywhere and we weren't given any information - we were just told to leave," she said.

"When we left ... I had a distraught teenager sitting in the back crying because we couldn't take the cat."

A car shunted downhill during the Ravenswood Rd slip came to rest in the garage at the rear of a property in the street. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery, Otago Daily Times

The family then started to see the shocking extent of the slip via social media.

They returned about 4pm on Saturday and were relieved to find their home undamaged.

"There was a letter in the letterbox saying we could go into the house but not into the backyard," she said.

The family remained anxious as the slip seemed ominously close to their house.

"We don't know about the long term, what we have to do," Kelsall said.

"How do we stabilise it? What does that involve?

"We are all sort of feeling what's the next stage? We have got no information.

"A lack of information is awful.

"It certainly has rattled all of us and it's rattled me quite a lot. I don't want to move, I never want to move."

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said the Dunedin City Council would be advising residents of the next steps as information became available.

Geotechnical assessments would be carried out this week with further information to follow.

"It wasn't possible to give ... good answers straight away," he said.