Plimmerton’s ‘terrifying’ flood shuts down SH1, prompts evacuations

Residents of a small Porirua community were evacuated from their homes this morning when flash floods sent rivers of water through residential streets.

Approximately 15 homes are now uninhabitable and locals have been left with the task of cleaning muddy streets after a perfect storm hit the Karehana Bay area in Plimmerton.

In a sudden and violent convergence of misfortunes – that is, heavy and constant rains, high tide, a burst water main and overflowing storm drains – residents found their homes filled with water.

“It was actually quite scary, because it came up so fast,” said a woman this afternoon, still shocked by how quickly the flooding occurred.

“It is absolutely terrible.”

And that came from one of the “lucky ones”, for whom the water only reached the door.

Further along the highway, people found dirty brown water entering their houses as it ran like a river down the street, opening the manhole covers and flowing through the undercarriages of parked cars.

Another resident said he lived on a hill but had gone to visit a friend whose entire house was flooded with up to 16 inches of water.

On Airlie Rd, Hazel Kale came home after checking on her parents and found gushing water in her living room.

She had never seen the area flood so heavily and said that some of her neighbors who had lived there for 40 years told her it had never been this bad.

His words were echoed by Porirua Mayor Anita Baker, who said she had “never seen so much water” in the area around Karehana Park.

“That has gone up before because it has a small jet, but never like this. I had never seen it so bad in my time.”

He said that people would be upset with the Porirua City Council and that he felt “very sorry for them”, but believed that the City Council could not have planned such an event.

“This was a one-time big flood compared to what we normally experience.”

About 15 houses had to be evacuated due to the flooding, and the council was working to help locals clean up the area.

“The streets are covered in dirt,” said local woman Gillian Dodson.

“It was quite dramatic, I tell you. We were lucky, the water was 2 cm from the front door, but we managed not to flood.”

Neighbors, city staff and firefighters were on the street this afternoon addressing the disaster, he said.

The flooding also stopped traffic in and out of the region, as the water filled the Plimmerton roundabout area and caused the main road north of Wellington to close.

That was an “ongoing problem” that occurred more often with heavy rains, Baker said.

While the city now enjoys crystal clear skies, a warm sun, and the softest breeze, only hours earlier it was falling, as it had been for much of the night.

MetService forecaster Aiden Pyselman said Porirua recorded 49mm of rain between 2am and 11am, while nearby areas recorded between 65 and 74mm.

Porirua received more than 38mm of that rain from 7am to 11am

The flood was not over either; Pyselman noticed another front approaching, bringing more rain.

“Tomorrow there is a storm coming from the Tasman Sea,” he said.

There is a heavy rain watch for the Wellington and Tararua Range region, and winds were forecast to potentially reach gusts of up to 110 km / h.

A social assistance point for displaced residents has been established at the Plimmerton Fire Station.