Craig Cooper: City of Sails’ deluge a wake-up call, again

Auckland, January 27? No, Napier in 2020, when the city endured a similar experience to this week's Auckland rainstorm. Photo / Warren Buckland

Napier locals will have felt a sense of spooky déjà vu watching the disastrous rainstorm, flooding and slips in Auckland.

The same thing happened in Napier, of course, in November 2020.

Many of the post-storm questions being asked of Auckland Civil Defence staff, emergency authorities, local government officials and mayor Wayne Brown were also asked here.

Brown, it has to be said, was a fish out of the rising floodwaters on Friday night.

A hard-nosed “get things done” mayor with few soft skills, Mother Nature rendered him impotent to do anything practical.

Brown could have put his gumboots on and gone walkabout, posing for a photo op.

But what practical good would that have achieved? Remember, this is a “get things done” mayor.

And a mayor with a propensity to tell journalists to f**k off, which suggests he is not fussed how the media portrays him.

The exception being when he is trying to win an election, or defending himself against what he perceives to be unfair allegations.

And on Saturday, Brown was accused of being AWOL on Friday as Auckland slowly drowned in the freakishly heavy rain storm.

Where was he, where was the communication from the Auckland Council about the flooding, and why didn’t he call a state of emergency sooner?

Mayors are bound by bureaucracy when it comes to calling a state of emergency - just ask Napier’s Mayor Kirsten Wise, who was asked the same question in 2020.

Declaring a state of emergency has more symbolic meaning than practical application - it gives police the power to order people to evacuate or stay away from a designated area.

Symbolically, it lets people know “this is bad, you need to take this seriously”.

Napier’s flooding emergency not only highlighted perceived political inaction and communication issues, it spot-lit the volatility of New Zealand’s climate, and the inability of more-than-100-year-old stormwater systems to cope. Just like Auckland’s storm has.

The Napier flooding led to people living in temporary accommodation for more than a year, after their homes were damaged by slips.

It caused millions of dollars worth of damage, and repair work has still not been carried out to some damaged homes.

This will also happen in Auckland.

Since Friday night, experts have made a couple of very salient observations.

Warm sea temperatures contribute to this type of heavy rainstorm, which puts just about every city and town in New Zealand at risk.

So perhaps some of us need to rethink our views on climate change.

And then there is Three Waters.

Three Waters failed because Labour had become used to voters dutifully doing what they were told lest they die.

They pushed forward the controversial policy with the same communication style they used to tell the country when it could or couldn’t wear a mask.

It had the wrong minister in charge of it, lacked detail and rarked up councils something fierce.

Which is sad, because at the core of it was some sound intent - to address the poor management of a valuable resource, including taking the management and maintenance of ageing stormwater systems off local councils.

In November 2020, the rainstorm and flooding in Napier highlighted everything we are now discussing after Auckland’s experience. And what changed?

It is plain for everyone to see, that the status quo is not an option.

The world’s arctic “fridge” no longer works properly, the oceans are not going to get colder, there will be more storms, more flooding and more deaths.

Perhaps now that the country’s largest city has been through the same experience Napier endured, having a practical “get things done” Auckland mayor might not be a bad thing, after all.