Weather bomb floods offices in Whangarei

Ross Carter of Benny's Auctions scoops water from the floor of his business after the torrential rain. PHOTO/IMRAN ALI

A weather bomb that dumped more than 30mm of rain on central Whangarei in just two hours caught some businesses by surprise and left them with a hefty cleaning bill.

A heavy downpour caught workers in town during their lunch hour yesterday while for some retailers, an arduous cleaning up started soon after rain cleared around 3pm.

Rainfall figures from the Northland Regional Council showed the most rain in Northland, 31.7mm, between 1pm and 3pm yesterday fell on Robert St in central Whangarei. Water St received 29mm during the same period.

Water had seeped into parts of disability resource centre NorthAble and Benny's Auctions on John St, as well as in Harcourts on Robert St but there was no major damage.

Ross Carter, owner of Benny's Auctions, was busy scooping water from the wet carpet after moving most of the furniture to an adjacent storage area. It was the first time parts of the business had been water logged since he opened shop in July last year.

He suspected water got in through the front of the building.

"It caught us by surprise alright. But no furniture was damaged as they have mostly plastic legs and we had plenty staff working, shifting them out in the backroom."

At NorthAble, water flowed back through four airconditioning system outlets that CEO Noel Matthews believed were connected to stormwater pipes and started dripping down into the offices.

"It happened once before, about six months ago, and we had new carpets and repainted the walls. As the stormwater outlet on the road is blocked, water comes back into the building," he said.

"It's an interruption to our services as we have to find a place for our staff to work from for the remainder of the week."

Across the road, items on shelves at Equipment Plus got wet after water seeped into one of the rooms through the ceiling.

At Harcourts, business owner Debbie Beazley said water got into two rooms but there was no major disruption.

Outside the central business area, a water leak in the ceiling at Noel Leeming at Okara Park forced the manager to pull the plug on the store's power as a safety precaution.