Well, we were surprised again, but we should not have been.
Slow off the mark here, I know, but i really needed some days of sunshine before i could write about the deluge of crap weather we’ve been having lately. I must say, though, that this city never ceases to amaze me. I mean, look at this picture below:
The video is as harrowing as hell – no-one’s front door should be doing imitations of a hydro dam. That was… quite a torrent. Clearly there is a problem with overflow route paths getting too real and far too close to floor level – ie arriving ABOVE floor level, and not passing underneath it. Here’s another overflow route misbehaving – from further up country I believe. But clearly beyond the capabilities of the under-capacity pipe under the road. Nothing that a few mega-girthed ducts under the road couldn’t fix.
I forget where some of these pictures have come from – this one obviously thanks to Stuff, but is it of a back road bush whackers access road? Or is it just the Ohiro Road, which is obviously the route of a stream as well as probably a fault line as well. There’s a lot of rubble coming down the street.
But not as much as the rubble coming down this person’s drive…. which I understand that they were also finding coming through the house as well – so I think they were scooping up some of this rubble to form a rough rubble-bank, to help keep more of the water out. So, a lot of crap to clean up, but not a total disaster I hope.
More Ohiro Road – but where is the usual route for water? It is clearly a river-valley, so there should normally be a river / creek here, but from memory it does not usually come down next to the road.
And I think that this picture (below) is of the same Ohiro Road as shown above, but at the peak of the storm in the depths of the night – that’s a massive volume right there, cascading down the street.
There were undoubtedly a few cars washed away in that storm – below is one sad looking Mini that has washed down a stream. And possibly the house is going to join it.
Officially there was a peak flow of 77mm in an hour, which is probably just a typical Thursday if you live in Greymouth, but is more unusual in Wellington. But it is not completely unheard of or unprecedented in Poneke before – I recall 75mm about 20 years ago, where a sudden deluge in Taranaki Street flooded into a basement garage in Wakefield Street and there were photos of a brand new Beetle floating around in water 6 foot deep. And when the waters recede, they can leave surprises in choice of parking…
And: not enough pipes
for some
