If the drain isn’t cleared, the water will come right up to the house.
Whanganui District Council emergency manager Tim Crowe said if a sufficient flood occurred, the river could not be prevented from going into areas like Anzac Pde.
“You know, 99.9 per cent of the time these are wonderful places to live, but it’s that percentage when they’re not that can be quite traumatic,” Crowe said.
As part of a flood strategy prepared by Massey University, Whanganui District Council and Horizons Regional Council are delivering packs to Anzac Pde residents containing household emergency plans, information on how to connect to river monitoring systems and fridge magnets.
Love works as a midwife and said she was “always worrying” about how she would access the hospital if the street got blocked off due to flooding.
Their house is currently on the market, but its position in a high-risk flood zone acts as a deterrent to buyers.
“If we knew then what we know now, I think we may have reconsidered buying this place,” Love said.
Puhara said he had found out about the plan to deliver information packs through a post on Facebook.
“What about those people who don’t use social media? I saw that [by] accident. They could be more face-to-face.”
Horizons Regional Council emergency management manager Ian Lowe said the latest council work wouldn’t increase protection from flooding, but it would raise the awareness of the community.
“The flood risk will always be there, we can’t take that away, but what we can do is inform people of that risk and the actions they can take long before it actually happens.”
Crowe said there were four mobile speakers playing prerecorded messages that would be driven up and down the street to warn residents in the event of the flood.
Dot and Des Thiele were evacuated from their Anzac Pde property during the 2015 flood, but have remained in their home since.
Des Thiele said since 2015, floodwaters had not come anywhere near that height.
“It doesn’t worry us in the slightest.”
If the stopbank beside Kowhai Park were built up, it would ensure greater protection for residents, Des Thiele said.
“That would be nice, to see that done, because that would give [us] the assurance that it’d be 50 years before we’d have to worry about another flood.
“They’ve had lots of meetings and lots of talking, but not a lot of action.”
Crowe said bolstering stopbanks had been raised as an issue in the past, but was not recommended by experts and was a costly exercise.
“I’m also personally wary of building up large amounts of flood protection which may divert the problem to somewhere else, or, if and when they get breached, create a much bigger problem.
“If people rely on protection and that protection fails, the outcomes are quite catastrophic.”
A 2022 council Anzac Pde flood resilience strategy report found the current stopbank protection was for a one-in-30-year flooding event.
The report also outlined that stopbank improvements would have a major impact on the aesthetic and amenity values of Kowhai Park.
Whanganui District Council is hosting a free sausage sizzle at Kowhai Park to provide further information for Anzac Pde residents on November 23.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
