Trapped Auckland motorists dig for freedom

Kawakawa Bay man Jim Maddock helps other locals dig their way through a landslide of Turei Hill that blocked both lanes of the road. Photo / Rebekah Maddock

Kawakawa Bay residents had to muck in this morning after a large slip from the Turei Hill smothered the main road.

Jim and Rebekah Maddock pulled up to the scene about 7am from their nearby home, to find a long line of traffic.

Up ahead, they could see people digging. So Jim Maddock got out and joined them.

"We came down and there was a long line of cars along the beach and we thought 'oh, here we go'," Rebekah Maddock says. "We have a four-wheel drive so we just drove up to where the slip was and my husband has been keeping a shovel and chainsaw and gumboots in the car, so he just got out and started helping to shovel."

After a short while they managed to get one lane open and let through the queues of traffic.

However, it wasn't a big deal to the locals, she said, as they've experienced it all before.

"We're pretty used to it. We live on the hill between Kawakawa Bay and Orere Point and that was closed in the flood a month ago. There was a bunch of locals out then clearing it as well because our hill was closed then."

With the arrival of Cyclone Debbie, Rebekah Maddock says she's had to park up her "little car" and catch a ride with her husband to work in his Hilux.

The drama didn't end once she'd got to work though, as her office at Ardmore Airport was flooded, for the second morning in a row.