Mangapapa flooding: from sedate stream to ‘a raging torrent’

Pool parties definitiely on hold for now: Oswald Street homeowner Kerry Fletcher (left) and boarder Merianne Orlowski next to a mud-surrounded, dirty pool after Ms Fletcher's home was flooded when the nearby Mangapapa Stream overflowed in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Picture by Liam Clayton

A ladder straddling the fence to her neighbour's property signalled how worried Kerry Fletcher got when her home was inundated by floodwaters in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The Oswald Street homeowner was busy cleaning up yesterday after the usually sedate nearby Mangapapa Stream became a torrent, overflowed on to her property and into the bottom floor of her two-storey house.

Gisborne city was battered by heavy rain on Monday night and into the early hours of Tuesday morning. It caused major surface flooding and the volume of water could not be contained by an already rain-stricken stormwater system and waterways in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Ms Fletcher, whose bedroom is on the top floor of her house with a boarder on the ground floor, recalls waking up at 4am to a constant “banging noise.”

“I looked out of my window and I saw several pieces of firewood and cars (three of them) floating.”

The stream was “a raging torrent”, she said.

Realising that floodwater may have inundated her ground floor, she rushed downstairs to wake up her boarder, Merianne Orlowski.

“When I got to the bottom of the stairs the water was already knee-height,” Ms Fletcher said. “I yelled into her bedroom ‘get out'.”

Ms Orlowski said a couple of minutes prior to that, she had woken up to a sound of running water.

“I thought I had left a tap on but when I got off my bed to check I felt my feet go wet and the water was knee-deep.

“The water was rushing in rapidly. From my fridge to cupboards, everything was floating around.”

The pair went upstairs and watched as the water poured in “like the Titanic”.

Ms Fletcher said it got halfway up the first stairwell — “at least a metre high”.

Fortunately, they still had power and “rode it out” until daylight on the back veranda with “some strong Irish coffees”.

Ms Fletcher had contacted her neighbour Kerry Jones for an escape route if needed. He put a ladder over the fence which was still there yesterday.

Ms Fletcher, Ms Orlowski and a band of helpers got stuck into cleaning up yesterday.

Three cars — one of those Ms Orlowski's work vehicle — were write-offs, Ms Fletcher said.

All sorts of items downstairs were lost. They took 2000 kilograms of destroyed items to Jukes Carriers over the course of the day.

She was yet to tackle her pool which before the flooding was surrounded by outdoor furniture and pot plants.

“I'm worried about what is in the pool. You can't see the bottom.”

Ms Fletcher said she had never gone through such an experience.

“I remember helping my grandparents out of the floodwater in Vogel Street back in the 70s but never imagined I'd be in one myself.”

She was grateful to all those who helped clean up the mess.

And while the extensive clean-up continues, along with sorting out insurance and the like, she acknowledges it could have been worse.

“We're all OK. That's the main thing.”