Waihī Beach Floods: ‘history repeating itself’

“ e most violent of weather” pummelled the coastal community of Waihī Beach on May 29, causing ash ooding and the town’s dam to over ow.

Water rushed through the northern end of the Western Bay of Plenty town lling up creeks and owing over roads.

Heather Cumming was one of 27 people forced to evacuate her home that day, alongside 11 elderly residents from the nearby pensioner housing and two families from the holiday park.

“It was that most violent of weather. You’ve got your rain, your lightning, and your thunder. And

I thought: ‘wow’ this is it,” says Heather, her voice shaking as she recalls the event.

Fellow local resident Sue Hope says the May 29 ood was “history repeating itself” after a similar thing happened in 2012.

Could it have been avoided? Some residents believe it could have. e second of this two-part series by Local Democracy Reporter Alisha Evans will delve into this. e Western Bay of Plenty District Council recorded 67mm of rain between 1pm and 2.30pm and a total of 91.4mm on May 29. e town’s dam over owed into the emergency spillway for 40 minutes from 1.26pm.

Lack of capacity

e council admits the stormwater network didn’t have the capacity to deal with the amount of rain that fell that day. Heather was “stunned” when she was told she needed to evacuate by the re service. She got some neighbours to take her elderly dog, Sparky, and tried to “pick up a few things up o the oor” of her Marine Avenue home. She waded through chesthigh water, contaminated with sewage that reached 1.2m. It ooded the raised sleepout at the back of her property and came into the main house.

“I walked out and I was soaking wet, absolutely freezing; so I got the dog and drove to mum’s in Pyes Pā.” e days that followed were a blur of friends and family pitching in and helping to replace oorboards, remove sodden under oor insulation, cut out wet gib board and clean the silt and debris that permeated every crevice of

Heather’s home. “For the first couple of days, I couldn’t actually speak. It’s very confronting when everything you own is on the front lawn because it’s not worth anything.”

Heather was uninsured for the flooding because her home was affected by the 2012 floods as well.

She says her husband was looking forward to cutting back at work but now they can’t do that because of the repair bill and they may look at raising their home.

Community’s sentiment

The 61-year-old echoes a lot of the community’s sentiment in saying: “Thank goodness it happened in the daytime and not night, because the old people’s [flats], someone might’ve died over there”.

Waihī Beach Community Board chair Ross Goudie agrees.

“They’d have been asleep and the water would’ve been up around their beds… up to the window tops and in the dark no one knows what’s going on.”

Heather says: “It’s [the flooding] really sad because I don’t think it really needed to happen.”

A Waihī Beach resident of 36 years, Sue Hope formed the Storm Water Action Team – or SWAT – in 2013 because of the 2012 flood.

In her view “a lot of this could have been avoided”. Sue and others worked with the council for two years on stormwater projects that were included in the council’s 2015-2025 Long Term Plan.

Deferred

These included upgrades to the dam, One Mile Creek that runs through the holiday park, as well as Darley Drain outlet.

“Unfortunately a lot of those things didn’t get done and they got deferred.”

WBOPDC Waihī Beach stormwater project leader James Abraham says the council deferred planned upgrades to the dam because it was waiting for new legislation on dam safety guidelines that were released in 2022. There is a project in the council’s LTP to address the issues, which has now been “brought forward as a priority”.

James says the main outlet of the stormwater catchment for Marine Ave, Walnut Ave and Jenkinson Street, which runs behind the pensioner flats, is Darley Drain.

Improving this catchment is also a “high priority” because of the low lying area and number of homes affected, says James. “The biggest improvement that can be made to the Darley Drain catchment is diverting water away from it.”

The water will be diverted to Two Mile Creek, which requires the embankment to be protected from erosion.

This work has been delayed because of the “lengthy process” getting landowners’ permission, says James.

In response to the floods, a community liaison group has been formed with Waihī Beach Community Board members, the mayor and three councillors, hapū representatives and members of SWAT.

Reprioritised project

They held their first meeting in July to discuss the $19 million in stormwater upgrades planned to take place during the next few years. The draft reprioritised project list will go to the council’s Projects and Monitoring Committee meeting on Tuesday, August 8, for approval. A more in-depth analysis can be found at: www.sunlive.co.nz Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.