Auckland floods then and now: Stunning photos capture devastation - see how the same spots look today

After the flash flooding comes the flashbacks.

Every time it rains, Chris Hung’s mind reverts to the worst-case scenario: Torrential downpours, knee-high flooding and water streaming into his home.

It’s been a year since the Auckland Anniversary floods but Hung still thinks about that night all the time.

The impact of the January 27 storm was sudden, widespread, intense and unprecedented.

Hundreds of homes, including Hung’s, were damaged or completely ruined. Roads across Auckland were closed as the land above or below them crumbled and four people lost their lives.

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At Hung’s house in Greenlane, the flooding was above his knees. As the water kept rising and getting closer to his front door, he frantically cleared leaves from the stormwater drains outside his house.

He was scared, nervous and desperate to protect his family’s beloved home of 30 years. He was particularly anxious to protect his wife’s Steinway grand piano, a gift from her father before he died.

“[I] don’t want to go back to that day again,” Hung told the Herald this week.

“You can’t go to sleep easily. You always fear about the heavy rainfall because of the inaccuracy of the forecast system.”

Despite Hung’s best efforts, the floodwaters invaded his home. The piano was saved but the flooring and plasterboard walls on the ground floor had to be ripped out and replaced.

The home has another new addition: Hung has a security camera pointed at the stormwater drains so he can monitor them when he is away from home and the rain comes.

He and his neighbours in Karetu Rd started a community response group after the Auckland floods where they keep an eye on each other’s properties when it’s raining. When one neighbour is away, another is allocated to monitor their home.

Hung keeps a cone, a long metal rod and bricks by his front gate in case it rains when he is away and his neighbours need to clear his stormwater drains.

Homes and roads can be repaired and possessions purchased again, but some things that were lost in the floods can never be replaced.

Four people died, including Remuera man David Lennard after a slip came down through his home.

Lennard was remembered as a respected mechanical expert and a long-time volunteer at Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). A Facebook tribute at the time said he had spent more than 20 years as the “mechanical Mr Fix-it” for the museum’s Western Springs tramway.

Soon after the slip, the Shore Rd house was demolished. Today, shrubs and trees have grown in its place.

A neighbouring house is still condemned, with a faded red sticker visible in the window. The property has been graffitied, a window smashed, a door hanging ajar and rubbish is piled up in the front courtyard.

The night of the Auckland floods, global superstar Elton John was in town, preparing for a concert at Mt Smart Stadium.

Fans gathered in the rain, wearing thin disposable ponchos or raincoats, determined to see their man. But as the rain ramped up, the concert was cancelled at the last minute and fans were evacuated.

Some described the chaos of trying to get transport home from the venue as the streets were flooded. Many made their way from the venue on foot, trudging through the calf-high flood water in Great South Rd.

Watching the chaos through the window of his Greenlane home was 11-year-old Hiruka Ranasinghe.

“There was like a garbage bin floating down with like boxing gloves and stuff coming out,” Hiruka recalls, one year on from the storm.

“After it calmed down there was like a lot of people coming outside. We also went outside to see what was there.”

The flood water had almost reached the top step at his front door, he said.

Sergeant Chris Harding was working at the Elton John concert on January 27. He said the scale of the situation across Auckland hit him when he tuned into the police radio channel after the concert had been cancelled and heard the types of jobs his colleagues were being called to.

“That really sort of started to hit home, like, oh, that’s where I want to be,” he said.

Harding put a first-aid kit backpack on and headed out into the floodwaters in the dark around Māngere with his colleagues.

The team responded to callouts including helping a woman with diabetes who was trapped in her car in floodwater but needed her medication, escorting a family to safety through knee-deep floodwaters, helping them carry their belongings and reassuring people who were nervous.

“With the water, you can’t see what’s in it when you’re walking along. And even when we were walking along I was telling everyone we’ve got to walk in the middle of the road because that’s ... the highest point and you want to avoid any kind of drains or anything like that, because as soon as we step near one of those we’re gone.”

One of the most surreal moments of the floods was when Auckland Airport’s terminals were flooded. Photos from the night show passengers walking through the floodwater which had inundated the ground floor of the terminal.

The deluge severely impacted the airport’s services. Scores of flights were cancelled and the terminal was closed. More than 2000 people stayed overnight at Auckland Airport terminals because of flooding.

In French Bay, Titirangi, there is an obvious and constant reminder of the destruction of the Auckland floods. A year later, the mangled remains of the old Coastguard building are still piled up on the wharf.

West Auckland was one of the suburbs hit hard by the floods and the building was wiped out by a slip while a rescue vessel was damaged. Coastguard Titirangi, which operates an emergency rescue service for the Manukau Harbour, has moved to a leased facility in Onehunga.

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Auckland Flooding: How hard was your suburb hit?

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Julia Gabel is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on data journalism. She joined the Herald in 2020.