School caretaker saves the day (and the school hall) with Kiwi ingenuity

A crafty caretaker is being praised after he constructed a makeshift dam out of school bleachers and paving stones to stave off a torrent of floodwater headed for a school hall.

In the driving rain Glen Eden Intermediate school property manager Andrew Howel threw every available solid piece of equipment he could lay his hands on to divert water flowing straight for the auditorium in Sunday's deluge.

Howel happened to be at the school with one of the deputy principals scattering bins throughout the leaky staffroom when he noticed ankle-deep water gushing outside the buildings, said Principal Maree Stavert.

"They looked outside and saw water running across the school and pooling in front of the auditorium at a lower area of the school," said Stavert.

"The biggest thing there is it has a beautiful wooden floor that would have been ruined if the water got in."

"Andrew pretty quickly knew that the water couldn't get into it so he started to make a dam across the flow using blocks and paving stones and anything he could get hold of."

Howel's attempt to create a 4-metre-wide channel to divert the growing flood was successful with the water cascading down steps to the field in a completely different direction from the hall.

Today the school was assessing the damage after the deluge.

Stavert said thanks to the property manager's fast action, just one classroom had been left unusable from flood damage.