“We’re waiting on the government. If I haven’t applied for any insurance yet, because what if the government turns around and says we must leave?
“It’s not safe for us to stay back here anymore,” she said.
Minister for Auckland Michael Wood visited the area around Don Buck Rd to speak to residents and members of the West Auckland is Flooding (WAIF) advocacy group.
He said any decisions on potential solutions or workarounds to continual flooding in the area and elsewhere in Auckland could come by the end of this month.
Confronted by anxious and desperate people, Wood said residents of his Mt Roskill electorate had also experienced flooding and “the stress that people had only a few months ago”.
“We’re relatively close to being able to move forward with some certainty and be really clear,” Wood told the some 15 locals.
“We’re looking to really clearly identify those areas where it isn’t going to be safe or appropriate for people to live; areas where there needs to be other mitigations and interventions to make it safe; and other folks that can just get on.
“I want to give the assurance that we’re trying to push that along as fast as we can,” he told residents.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has called the latest flood episode “a serious situation” in Auckland as firefighters have already responded to more than 200 calls for help across the flood-affected city.
A state of local emergency has already been declared in Auckland as flooding swamps the region and MetService warns the most intense rainfall is yet to come.
Floodwaters in January inundated Tuiloma’s home - destroying most of her personal belongings. She’s been staying in a hotel since then, and stored the items she could recover in her garage.
The Momutu stream has also burst its banks this afternoon, Tuiloma told the Herald, and destroyed what she had left in her garage.
“I don’t know why it’s yellow [stickered], it should be red,” she said.
Tuiloma’s neighbour, Trushar Maisuria’s property also flooded - the fifth time since he bought it in 2020.
When he showed the Herald the state of his property floodwaters had already receded, leaving mud over his yard and on the floor of his garage where water had risen to about knee height this afternoon.
“Should I keep cleaning it? I don’t know,” Maisuria said.
“I have to put on a brave face, but it’s hard. I’m the man of the house, I have three women to look after.
“But there is a limit. I just want to sit down and cry.”
He says his five-year-old daughter is traumatised from the Auckland Anniversary weekend flooding.
“Every time it rains she asks, ‘is it going to flood?’ We’re not sleeping properly. My wife thinks every rainfall will kill us.
“I love this place. It’s beautiful, but we have to be able to live in this house to even start to enjoy it.”
He said he’d been put in temporary accommodation as his house was also yellow-stickered from January 27.
“I don’t think I want to be a homeowner anymore.
“January 27 took almost everything [I own]. This [afternoon’s flooding] has taken everything that’s left.
“Insurance is telling me my house is a write-off, but where’s the money?”
He said he hadn’t heard anything from the Government or Auckland Council about the future of his property.
A Civil Defence Centre has been opened in West Auckland where flooding and slips have left roads blocked and created hazardous driving conditions for the second time in a matter of months.
