Whanganui remains 'cut off' from rest of country

The overnight flooding, the city's worst on record, had also split the city in two because the three bridges across the river had been closed. Photo / Wanganui Chronicle

On the ground it was a nice day and the sun shone for the first time in days. But Whanganui was cut off from the rest of the country.

The overnight flooding, the city's worst on record, had also split the city in two because the three bridges across the river had been closed.

Climbing above a busy Whanganui airport in a helicopter brought some quick perspective. The ground surrounding the city was either green or brown. Water settled wherever ground was low. Wherever it was a bit higher, lush green winter paddocks remained.

Several hundred feet above the city were views of the damage. The waterlogged Spriggins Park, the flooded underground carpark at Trafalgar Square. The water was receding slowly on the city side of the Whanganui River but the riverside in the East and its parks were buried. Only the very tops of the Kowhai park playground poked through the surface water.

Heading out to low lying Whangaehu, 16km south of Whanganui, was a landscape dotted with lakes and slipped cliffs. Whangaehu always gets hammered by floods and it had been again. The State Highway winds towards the settlement and then disappears. Fences and paddocks had gone with only the tops of houses and trees visible.

Back across the city, north, to another low lying settlement, Waitotara. The 27km of State Highway 3 which linked it and Wanganui was dead. It was closed, there were no cars, only orange roadblocks placed randomly.

At Waitotara the bridge was still intact but the river was close to it. Three people gathered around three vehicles in the middle of a muddied country road. They could go no further.

Like Whangaehu, the flood had claimed homes and buildings in Waitotara. The floods extended acres around the village. Heading back to the city along the coast, plumes of brown water at each river mouth were spewing into the blue ocean.

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