Residents want more urgency on flood issues

From page 1 and what happens to the houses that have been yellow- and red- stickered,” board chair Toni van Tonder told the Observer.

Across the board’s northern area, this amounted to xx homes, with a further xxx having been white stickered.

With some homes abandoned, van Tonder said this raised questions of the wellbeing of neighbourhoods. The issue of buying back homes identified as at-risk needed to be addressed by the council, the government or both. Insurability also had to be addressed.

The board wants timelines for reviews the council has launched, including into emergency management and wastewater and stormwater capabilities.

“Where’s the accountability?” a Milford resident whose medium-sized business lost a million dollars worth of stock in the Wairau Valley asked the Observer. “I just see broken people and it really worries me.”

She did not wish to be identified for fear of getting offside with Watercare.

A Forrest Hill resident she knew whose home and business were flooded ended up having to repeatedly chase his insurance company for a partial payout so he could meet staff wages .

Businesses were going under as owners lost cashflow, she said. Others were working out of portacabins and using portaloos, while waiting for builders.

She said fundamental problems had not been addressed in what was the North Shore’s main industrial area, employing thousands of people.

“The pumps failed and we were left with a wall of sewage basically.”

The pumping station, which dated to the 1960s and had been patched up with spare parts, was meant to have been upgraded in 2019.

Toxic overflow... Wastewater gushed from this manhole by Inga Rd during recent floods. Another larger stormwater lid in nearby Brian Byrnes Reserve burst off

“Two people died for God’s sake and no one is doing anything.”

Homeowners were stressed due to not knowing if flooding would recur, the board was told last week by Milford residents concerned about issues in the area around Brian Byrnes Reserve, opposite the Milford Marina.

Bruce Ward said that part of Milford “dodged a bullet” because it was low tide in the estuary when floodwaters reached their height.

Homes were flooded, although not in the numbers inundated further up Wairau Creek around Nile and Alma Rds and off Shakespeare Rd. But manholes blew off and water was contaminated, he said, leading to e-coli cases among residents. “It’s bad enough having stormwater flowing through homes, but completely unacceptable to have raw sewage.”

Dredging the stream in the reserve – which has apparently been resisted for environmental reasons – would not have stopped it flooding, but it may have improved the water flow, he said. “Isn’t the welfare of dozens of residents more important than two or three eels?”

North Shore MP Simon Watts is calling for council-controlled organisation Watercare and council department Healthy Waters to upgrade the yellow-stickered pump station on Wairau Rd and stormwater in the area, dredge Milford Marina and attend to scheduled maintenance of creeks and streams.

Watts and local board members George Wood asnd Gavin Busch met with a group of business owners last week, including one brought to tears in explaining how people felt left to fend for themselves.

The business owners told Watts infrastructure issues identified in flooding in March 2022 had not been rectified.

Forrest Hill resident Max Whitehead told a Have Your Say session on the council’s draft budget last week that its financial shortfall should concentrate minds on core responsibilities. The former Act Party candidate said it was time to cut discretionary spending and provide reliable underground infrastructure.

“Please ensure our homes are safe and dry because right now thousands of your constituents live in fear whenever it rains.”

The council should not push on with intensification in areas with a long history of flooding, he said.

To board members, he said: “Are you, as our elected representatives, going to sit back and watch your constituents rebuild in the same locations, knowing they are likely to be flooded out of their homes again?”

Van Tonder said feedback from residents groups and individuals was clear that the council needed to get the basics right.

The board wanted thorough work done on what the ‘big fix’ for the Wairau catchment would be and to have it funded.

“The function of the stormwater is not okay, especially if we’re getting more of these [weather] events,” van Tonder said.

Meeting fails to address questions about AEM’s role

People seeking answers on the North Shore’s readiness to face natural disasters were instead put into groups and given paper and pens to come up with ideas of their own.

Three people walked out early during what had been billed as a flood debrief session in Takapuna this month. Others of the around 25 people there expressed frustration at the direction the meeting was taking, after Melanie Hutton, head of community and business resilience for Auckland Emergency Management (AEM) at Auckland Council said: “This is a workshop for positivity and gratefulness for what was achieved.” She asked attendees to briefly introduce themselves and say what they were grateful for.

“I’m grateful for our local community because there was zero response from AEM, said one resident from Castor Bay. Another said she wanted to know what the council was going to do to sort out drainage issues.

Several people were eager to relay their flood experiences, but talk was soon diverted to brainstorming in small groups. Some useful ideas resulted, along with plenty of cross-table talk about community frustration with poor public communications by AEM in the early stages of the Anniversary

Weeekend flooding in January and in outlining emergency management roles.

Community support group Auckland North Community and Development (Ancad), which the local board has tasked with helping suburbs develop their own emergency plans, called the meeting, but its chair Fiona Brennan, told the Observer AEM was responsible for structuring the main session.

Hutton told the paper she was surprised by the reaction at the meeting, but referred any other questions to council channels.

Meanwhile, Ancad is making progress in getting a Takapuna and Hauraki plan drafted.