Less severe weather forecast but emergency teams still wary of further rain: Minister

Residents at French Bay in Auckland watch on after a slip damaged the Coastguard building. Photo / Meg Liptrot

Emergency teams are hopeful the worst of the weather is past for flooded Auckland, Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty says.

“The most promising thing is that the forecast is less severe than it has been over the last couple of days,” he told Newstalk ZB this morning.

“We’re treading with caution, however, because the rain that Auckland experienced yesterday and last night was far more than forecast.”

Yesterday’s “extreme weather” happened so fast it caught everyone by surprise, McAnulty said.

“We knew that rain was coming, but not to the extent that it did and not the speed that it did.

“We’ve all seen images of cars being abandoned with windscreen wipers still going.

“There’s no way that you can predict that sort of weather coming so quickly.”

Aucklanders waking to flooded and damaged properties today should call their insurance company, McAnulty said.

Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty says the weather forecast is looking less severe today. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“My experience with insurance companies is they have been proactive in severe weather events and this one I expect will be no different,” he said.

He said that during the recent Nelson floods a community centre was set up and most of the insurance companies had teams there so people could sit down and talk through their situation.

“And I would hope something like that would happen in Auckland also,” he said.

He said he was aware that floodwaters had subsided at Auckland Airport where stranded passengers bunkered down in the terminal overnight because nearby roads were flooded.

Those travellers have now left but the airport has advised no flights will be taking off before midday.

Asked again about whether Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown was slow to declare a state of emergency, McAnulty said there would be a review into the process once the emergency response had passed.

“There will be a review, I’ve committed to that,” he said.

“We need to take lessons from every response and it’s clear that there needs to be lessons from this one, we’ll leave that to the review.

“For now the Prime Minister and I are just focusing on the response.”

The decision to activate the Beehive Bunker gave emergency teams access to more resources and facilities to help with the response.

McAnulty said said there would be a lot of disappointed fans among those who were already at the venue for last night’s Elton John concert when it was cancelled.

“I know that there’s a lot of disappointed people because I understand it was his last tour,” McAnulty said.

“But I don’t think there’ll be a single person that didn’t understand why they had to make that decision.”